Captain America: Civil War Could Have Been A Zombie Movie?!

The third ‘Captain America’ movie might have been a very different comic book adventure indeed.

Directorial duo Joe and Anthony Russo reveal in the extras for the upcoming ‘Captain America: Civil War’ home entertainment release (quotes via Entertainment Weekly) the direction the film might have taken if the ‘Civil War’ storyline had not panned out.

Joe Russo explains, “It was not a given that we were even going to do ‘Civil War’ when we were talking about the next movie after ‘Winter Soldier.’ So there was a period of time when we explored possibilities for Cap stories that did not include it.

“We spent a few weeks doing that, although ‘Civil War’ came up fairly early in the process and once that happened it took over our brains and we ran hard at it.”

A key factor in whether or not ‘Civil War’ would happen was the need for so many other Marvel actors to return – most significantly Robert Downey Jr., the highest paid member of Marvel’s stable, whose contract was renegotiated to incorporate the third ‘Captain America’ movie.

Obviously these negotiations proved fruitful, and audiences everywhere thrilled to see Cap and Iron Man turn on one another and split the Avengers in two over demands that the super-team submit themselves to government control.

However, had this not come to pass, the Russos contemplated a potentially more horror movie-esque direction, rooted in a Jack Kirby storyline from the ‘Captain America’ comics from 1976 (although from a modern perspective it sounds a lot like ‘28 Days Later…’).

Anthony Russo says, “There was a period where we did discuss a third act that revolved around the Madbomb from Cap mythology… which makes people crazy. It almost like zombifies them – but not literally.

“The charm of the Madbomb is that you turn hordes of people into berserkers. That was the physical challenge that Cap and company would have had to face.”

Joe Russo elaborates, “The notion of the Madbomb would have been Cap having to fight civilians and how he would he handle that. We were always trying to put him into these interesting moral conundrums because of his nature.

“That would have made a compelling third act because if civilians are the antagonists, how could he stop them without killing them?”

And given that it would have hinged on an almost-but-not-quite zombie angle, it seems feasible this alternate ‘Captain America 3’ could have in some way tied in with the popular ‘Marvel Zombies’ series, which sees the bulk of Marvel’s heroes become the walking dead.

An intriguing ‘what if’ – but one that would seem unlikely to make the big screen now, as the Madbomb theme was ultimately taken over to Marvel’s now-cancelled TV series ‘Agent Carter.’

‘Captain America: Civil War’ is out on DVD and Blu-ray in the UK from 5 September.

Picture Credit: Marvel

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