Anthony Mackie Discusses Replacing Chris Evans as Captain America

Avengers: Endgame saw many of the most important characters in the MCU wrap up their almost 10-year arcs, most notably with farewells for Iron Man, Black Widow, and Captain America. Even though Chris Evans won’t be reprising his role as Steve Rogers any time soon, the role of Cap is likely to continue, if the end of the film is any indication. And for the first time since the release of the movie, Anthony Mackie has opened up about wielding the shield.

During a recent panel at Celebrity Fan Fest over the weekend, Mackie said Evans broke the news to him while they watched a Patriots game at his house between shoots in Atlanta. “He and I go downstairs and he’s showing me the house and he’s like, ‘So are you excited?’ I’m like, ‘I mean yeah, it’s gonna be a football game. I love football, I watch football every week, but I didn’t know you were this into it,'” he explained. “And he’s like, ‘No, about the script. You haven’t read the scene?’ I was like, ‘No.’ So he jumps up, runs out of the room and back in with the script and hits me with the script. He’s like ‘Page 85! Read it! Read it!’ And he sits there like a kid watching [me read it].”

Mackie originally wanted to play Beast in those Fox-produced X-Men movies, but now he’s got the the honor of portraying two different Marvel heroes.

During the panel, Mackie also said he amusingly believed that Dave Bautista killed Tom Holland on set when the former was showing the latter a fighting move. “I thought he had hit Tom Holland and I was like ‘Oh my God, you just killed Tom,'” he said. “So I turn around and I see Tom sitting there and am like ‘Dude, what are you doing?’ and Tom’s like ‘Calm down, he’s teaching me a move!’ … It was the scariest moment of my life. I thought he killed him.”

Mackie clearly still has a big future ahead of him in the Marvel Cinematic Universe now that he’s scheduled to take over Captain America, but before then he’s set to appear as Falcon again alongside Sebastian Stan’s Bucky Barnes in Marvel’s Falcon & Winter Soldier TV show. Not a whole lot is known about the project just yet, but it is expected to arrive on Disney+ sometime next year.

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Deadline reports that the MCU will return to Comic-Con’s Hall H this year after taking a break in 2018, so hopefully there will be more answers on Falcon & Winter Soldier soon. The long-awaited Black Widow standalone film is also expected to make an appearance, as is Shang-Chi, The Eternals, and Doctor Strange 2. 

Marvel producer Kevin Feige also recently revealed that Avengers: Endgame, which is now the second highest grossing film of all-time worldwide, will return to the theaters next week with a brand new post-credits scene. When Endgame first arrived, it came sans famous post-credit sequence. 

Speaking to Screen Rant, Feige explained it’s “not an extended cut” but will have “a few new things at the end of the movie.” He added that “after the credits, there’ll be a deleted scene, a little tribute, and a few surprises. Which will be next weekend.”

The Russo Brothers recently alluded to Mackie’s future as Sam Wilson’s Captain America, by posting a picture of a figurine they saw in Japan.

Hopefully fans won’t have to wait much longer to see Mackie with that iconic shield for real.