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‘Captain America: Civil War’ Was Only Made Because Of ‘Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice’

By Gregory Wakeman
Published on: 01:30 PST, Apr 29, 2016

The current box office projections for Captain America: Civil War, coupled with its stellar early reviews, suggest that Marvel’s latest blockbuster is going to eclipse both the acclaim and gross of its Warner Bros. rival Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.

For those of you that don’t know, Zack Snyder’s follow-up to Man Of Steel and the first of at least nine impending instalments to the DC Extended Universe might have grossed over $850 million at the box office, but it was still regarded as a disappointment because the studio expected it to make at least $1 billion.

This was then coupled with quite a few negative reviews for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, which were so overwhelming that it currently has the lowly score of just 27 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.

But Joe and Anthony Russo, the directing team behind Captain America: Civil War, have now admitted that the announcement that Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was in production convinced Marvel Studios to move ahead with Civil War, which brings together several iconic superheroes.

Speaking to the Hollywood Reporter, Joe Russo admitted that plans changed drastically and evolved after Warner Bros. announced Batman v Superman, especially from when they had originally sat down with Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige to discuss the third Captain America film.

Talking about his discussions with Kevin Feige, Joe Russo explained, “There have been 11 or 12 [Marvel Cinematic Universe] movies so far, all with a fairly traditional structure. Our pitch to them was: ‘People will tell you they love chocolate ice cream – until you give it to them five days a week. It’s time to give them some rainbow sherbet.'”

Joe Russo continued, “Kevin is a maverick, and he’s very sensitive to how people are responding to his content. He said he thought he might be right. And after they announced Batman v Superman, he said, ‘You guys are absolutely right.’ We needed to do something challenging with the material, or we were going to start to lose the audience.”

According to Deadline, Captain America: Civil War is currently on track to gross over $190 million in the U.S. alone when it’s finally released into cinemas next Friday, which means that it would only be eclipsed by its Marvel Cinematic Universe brethren The Avengers and Avengers: Age of Ultron, which grossed $207.44 million and $191.27 million domestically.

Captain America: Civil War actually opened internationally on Friday, and the early estimates are that it could amass somewhere between $200 million to $250 million in the likes of England, Australia, Germany, Denmark, Brazil, Portugal, as well as the dozen or so other territories it’s been released in.

There is a huge excitement regarding the release of Captain America: Civil War.

Not only is it the third Captain America film, following on from 2011’s Captain America: The First Avenger and 2014’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier, but it’s also bringing together the likes of Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man, Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow, Sebastian Stan’s Winter Soldier, Anthony Mackie’s Falcon, Don Cheadle’s War Machine, Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye, Paul Bettany’s Vision, Elizabeth Olsen’s Scarlet Witch, Paul Rudd’s Ant-Man, and Emily VanCamp’s Agent 13 for what’s been labelled by some as Avengers 2.5.

There’s also a huge excitement regarding Captain America: Civil War because it will introduce Tom Holland’s Peter Parker/Spider-Man and Chadwick Boseman’s T’Challa/Black Panther to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

While it’s now in cinemas across Europe, Captain America: Civil War won’t be released in the U.S. until May 6.

[Images via Marvel & Warner Bros]

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