It’s been over a year and a half since Avengers: Endgame hit theaters. The film divided fans in one of it’s ending scenes, where an old Steve Rogers passed off his shield to Sam Wilson and not Bucky Barnes. Everyone was wondering who would take on the mantle of Captain America after Chris Evans announced his retirement from the MCU , and it looked like Anthony Mackie was going to be the lucky one.
A new interview, however, is suggesting that it might not be Sam who is the new Cap. Mackie sat down via video chat with Jess Cagle on SiriusXM’s The Jess Cagle Show , where he gave some insight into what can be expected in the upcoming The Falcon and the Winter Soldier Dinsey Plus series. Cagle suggested that Sam would be the one to become the new Captain America, but Mackie quickly shut the idea down.
“No, we don’t know that yet. The show, the idea of the show is basically, you know, and at the end of Avengers: Endgame , Cap decided he was going into retirement and he asked me if I would take up the shield, but at no point in time, did I agree to or say that I would be Captain America,” Mackie said. “So the show walks the line of who is going to take up the shield and who’s going to be Captain America if Steve isn’t coming back.”
Mackie made sure to clarify that he never accepted the mantle from Steve, hinting that there will be some back and forth between his character and Sebastian Stan’s Bucky in TFATWS.
After being handed the shield in Endgame , Steve asked his friend how it felt. Sam then explained that the shield felt like it was someone else’s. When Steve told him “it isn’t,” Sam responded back “Thank you. I’ll do my best.”
Technically, Mackie is right. His character never fully accepted the role and things were left open for some conflict between Sam and Bucky in the upcoming series. Whether either of the men will fully take on the Captain America role remains to be seen. The program is set to premiere on Disney Plus in March .
The synopsis of TFATWS is still under wraps at this time. The official description of the series is vague and says Sam and Bucky will team up on a “global adventure” that tests their skills and their patience. In the first trailer for the program, the two can be seen ruffling one another’s feathers. Fans will have to wait several more weeks before finding out if their conflict has anything to do with who wields the shield next.