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Anthony Mackie has turned in some great performances. Not always in great movies, but hey, no single actor’s performance can save a bad script (unless they’re Nic Cage, but we’re not sure he’s actually human). Now THR and Variety report Anthony Mackie is in negotiations to play Sam Wilson (“Falcon”) in Joe and Anthony Russo’s Captain America sequel. The spoilerish title of the sequel has also been announced, but we’ll get to that in a moment. First, let’s talk about Falcon, one of the first black superheroes:
Raised by two loving parents in Harlem, and a respected community member, after they are both killed, Sam Wilson becomes a criminal and pimp, renames himself Snap, and decamps to Los Angeles. While working on a job for the mob in Rio De Janeiro, his plane crash lands on Exile Island where he comes under the wing of Red Skull and his followers who are in hiding. Using the Cosmic Cube, Red Skull gives Wilson a range of powers, including a mental link with his beloved trained falcon Redwing (and other birds), and the ability to fly. Eventually he becomes pals with Captain American and they fight crime together (there are a couple of different version of how this happens, depending on the storyline you use), with Black Panther developing a harness for him to help him fly. [The Playlist]
Why they gotta make the brother be a pimp? That’s cold, Marvel.
Anyway, the spoilerish title to this sequel is Captain America: The Winter Soldier. If you don’t know what that means, consider the rest of this paragraph a spoiler. Bucky Barnes — who was presumed dead in the first movie — is found near death by the Russians and turned into the Winter Soldier, a brainwashed assassin who doesn’t remember his previous life. He’s kept in stasis between missions, which explains how he can still be about the same age in the future. Sebastian Stan (the actor who played Barnes) signed a six-picture deal, so it should be no shock he’s returning for at least one more Marvel film.
As for how Falcon will figure into Marvel’s plans, we suspect they’ll ditch the bird telepathy angle and just stick with the awesome “anti-hero who can freaking fly” angle. Otherwise we’re going to have a scene that plays out like this:
“Holy sh-t, dude! You can fly?”
“Indeed I can.”
“Oh my god, you’re the coolest person I’ve ever met. Flying is such an awesome superpower.”
“Yeah, and I can also read your parakeet’s mind. He tells me you cry when you masturbate.”
“. . . Get out of my house.”
And scene.
[Sources: The Playlist, THR, Variety, First Showing]