What are you talking about. That's ridiculous? As broken by Heroic Hollywood and confirmed by Villain Smash, Marvel has begun reshoots and additional production for Captain America: Civil War. For the record, while reshoots and pick-ups are often synonymous with production peril, they are a regular part of the Marvel Studios shoot and in-fact often factored into production budgets. So this doesn’t mean that the Marvel/Walt Disney DIS -2.04% release is in any kind of peril whatsoever. Okay, with that out of the way, the production has been extended in order to, among other things, beef up the role of Spider-Man in the third Captain America film. I won’t go into details (as they are kinda spoiler-ish), but the role that Peter Parker (Tom Holland) plays in the film is perhaps smaller in quantity compared to the level of excitement over the wall crawler making his official Marvel Cinematic Universe debut.
And, while I have my issues with that on a minor nitpicky level (I don’t want the excitement over Spider-Man to drown out Steve Rogers and/or the Black Panther and I don’t want Marvel to use Spider-Man as a crutch going forward), it’s a harmless and presumably crowd pleasing alteration. Provided that the new footage doesn’t stick out in a manner akin to Raymond Burr in the American version of Godzilla (although that would be truly amazing), no harm, no foul. But going forward, I’d like to offer a modest proposal to Walt Disney and Marvel marketing departments: To the best of your abilities, keep Spider-Man out of any and all Captain America: Civil War marketing materials. This is a proposal that I propose (yes, that was intentional) for two specific reasons.
First of all, you want to make sure that the focus of the marketing campaign is on the notion that Captain America: Civil War is in-fact a third Steve Rogers adventure. From what I’ve heard about the D23 Expo sizzle reel that played to acclaim last weekend, this seems to be the idea thus far. I don’t want to go into footage that I haven’t personally viewed, but the initial tease appears to keep Captain America and his story front-and-center. As I’ve discussed before, you want to make sure that this film is treated as Captain America 3, not Iron Man 4 or Avengers 2.5. And while Spider-Man is a huge added value element, he is also someone (along with Iron Man) who can hijack the marketing campaign and increase the public perception that this is basically a third Avengers movie. That’s a perception that must be avoided at all costs.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier earned $714 million worldwide, Iron Man 3 earned $1.2 billion worldwide, and the two Avengers films earned $1.5b and $1.4b respectively. You see why Disney might want to keep expectations in check for what a third Captain America movie might gross, especially coming six weeks after Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. At the risk of stating the obvious, a campaign for the third Steve Rogers adventure needs to keep the focus on Steve Rogers when at all possible. Too much Spider-Man detracts from that notion and makes it seem like a bigger event. Besides, the less Spider-Man appears in the marketing, the less of an issue Marvel will have in terms of the perception that the film is a backdoor pilot for the next Spider-Man movie. It’s not like the fans don’t already know he will show up.
If I may digress for a paragraph, if Marvel wants to use the Civil War marketing campaign to boost a new character, they are infinitely better off spending the time hawking Black Panther. Chadwick Boseman’s T’Challa will be making his MCU debut in advance of his stand-alone movie coming July 6th, 2018. Now frankly I don’t think you really need to hype him that much in the pre-release advertisements. I’m sure whatever worth as a stand-alone superhero Boseman’s Black Panther brings to the table will be evident in the upcoming film itself which will debut two years ahead of his solo feature. Black Panther will at least have a movie-length trailer for his character, and it is in Marvel’s long term interest to make sure Captain Marvel and Dr. Strange aren’t lost in the shuffle. Still, if you’re going to use the Civil War campaign to hype a new guy, you might as well make it the one that needs to introduction. I guarantee you Marvel won't advertise Spider-Man in the any of the trailers or marketing for Captain America: Civil War. They'll save that for the movie.