All language subtitles for Icons.Unearthed.S04E05.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DD+2.0.H.264-playWEB_track3_[eng]

In 2010, Marvel set out
to turn one of its oldest superheroes

- into its newest blockbuster.
- Really? Captain America?

With The Avengers
already happening...

Captain America is
kind of the last puzzle piece

before we get to The Avengers.

But the first Avenger
first needed to be rediscovered...

He might come across
a little bit of my dad's hero.

...rehabilitated...

The motorcycles
and the helmets were awful.

...and reimagined.

We had to design the future

from the point of view of the past.

And Marvel was going
to do it all with a period piece.

That was a risky move,
doing a World War II period piece.

Featuring a reluctant lead.

He was worried that the movies

were gonna be bad.
And, so, he was nervous.

And unproven visual effects.

If skinny Steve ended up

being a failure,
the whole film would fail.

But with multiple
movies now in progress...

In the midst of doing
Thor and Captain America,

that's when it got really risky.

Marvel needed
to rethink more than one hero.

Halfway through
Captain America,

I just felt like,
"Wow, this is not working."

They needed
to reinvent their business.

It was the big thing
that we completely changed

in the--
in the whole film pipeline.

While Marvel's
distribution partner

was rethinking the business.

The fact that Paramount
let Marvel Studios go

is one of the worst mistakes
in Hollywood history.

The Marvel Universe
changed everything.

With origins
that go back 80 years,

Captain America is both the oldest

and the first Avenger.

However, when it came
to Marvel's slate of films,

Captain America was nowhere
near first on their list.

With Iron Man,
The Incredible Hulk,

and Iron Man 2 already out there

saving the world,
and Thor soon to be released

- in cinemas...
- Right after Thor was done,

it was full time, you know,
focus on Captain America.

Captain America's
one of the original titles

that Marvel Studios announces
it's going to self-produce.

The last puzzle piece
before we get to The Avengers.

The challenge in front of Marvel

was to make Captain America
relevant to modern audiences.

It's World War II.
It's history.

But with roots in the past

and a backstory
that goes even deeper,

perhaps Captain America
could tap into nostalgia.

The word "nostalgic,"
they don't wanna hear that.

That was not
what Marvel was looking for.

Kevin Feige has his eyes firmly fixed

on the road ahead with little
interest in looking back.

In the last 2000s, early 2010s,

the idea of a square,

do-gooding, World War II hero

with a name "Captain America,"

at a time when the global
box office was as important

as it had ever been,
there was a lot of questions about

what could this movie be
and whether audiences

would be into the idea
of Captain America as a hero.

Captain America
first appeared in March of 1941,

just months before Pearl Harbor,

and creators Jack Kirby and Joe Simon

weren't shy in stating
what Captain America stood for.

The first cover
of Captain America is literally

him punching Hitler in the face.

And Captain America
packed a punch

when it came to sales, too.

At the same time as the war,
it all just exploded

and suddenly there were GIs
that were reading it

because it was
very easily transported,

and, you know, you just read it
and rolled it up,

put it in your back pocket.

Right from the get-go,
Captain America wasn't afraid

to stand up for what was right,

even if it meant
ruffling a few feathers.

He doesn't necessarily do
what's politically correct

or politically authorized.
He looks at...

what this nation was originally
designed to become

and says, "Are we living that dream
or are we compromising it?"

When the government is doing
things that are moral

and ethical and correct,
he is supportive of it.

When it doesn't, when it sinks
lower than his belief in it,

then he is moved to address it.

But Cap's appeal
wasn't just political, it was emotional.

And he made fans all around the world.

He has a universal appeal.

The idea of striving and of generosity

and freedom, his omnipotence

is in that mindset, that courage.

And that's a much more
interesting dynamic

to play with because he's always
doing the right thing

or at least determined
to try and do the right thing.

But bringing
the essence of Captain America

to screen
was easier said than done,

as many film adaptations
had found out the hard way.

The first Captain America
was in 1944

and it's, you know,
kind of...

extraordinary to--
to think how early Marvel

had one of its properties
on screen.

- Just a minute!
- With World War II over,

Captain America
found other ways

to make himself useful.

And now he was packing heat.

Captain America used a gun...

Hold it.

...and fought crime.

I don't see Captain America
as being a cop.

The DC characters
tend to be authority figures,

whereas the Marvel characters,
the anti-authority figures, rebels.

He wasn't even
Steve Rogers.

He was a District Attorney
named Grant Gardner.

- It failed miserably.
- And as you

might remember,
in the late '70s

Marvel made moves to get
their characters on screen.

Captain America

on a shoestring budget
in some Romanian countryside.

But at least
he could get around safely

- in style.
- Motorcycles

and the helmets were awful.

Didn't look anything like
the Captain America that I knew.

For the second movie,

even the addition
of Christopher Lee

as an aging archvillain
wasn't enough.

A hero is only as good

as the villain they're against.

To whom?
An unarmed man?

But this villain's

diabolical threat to humanity
has not aged well.

- Quite literally.
- He wants to make

everyone age quickly.

At least in the 1989 version

they featured Captain America's
actual nemesis,

a rivalry that goes back
to Red Skull's first appearance

- in 1941.
- Tell me everything

you know about a guy
they called the Red Skull.

Well, to begin with,
he's a German

and a notorious Nazi villain.

But in the 1990
Captain America movie,

Red Skull is an Italian!

Where is the pain of my heart?

Each of these films succeeded

at being bad
in different ways.

One thing they shared in common
was they were not

- faithful to the comic.
- And then Captain America

went in to
sort of deep freeze...

metaphorically speaking,
and was resurrected

by Marvel Comics later on
as a character

who had sort of
been resurrected from,

you know, a deep sleep.

And here's
where things get interesting

because thanks to Mark Millar
and The Ultimates,

Captain America
had a bit of a sleep-in.

We thought, "Okay, how do we
start this thing from scratch

and introduce it
for a modern audience?"

I think any real success
has to look at

"Why has this thing
worked for decades?

Why have people liked this
for a long time?

And let's not lose that."
So, just be true to it.

So I had the World War II story
we're familiar with

and Cap being frozen in ice,
but instead of waking up

in the 1960s,
Cap woke up in

the contemporary world
of George Bush

and September the 11th and that
gave it its own flavor.

It had an entirely different
feel then because

it's a guy suddenly
in the world we know

and we're seeing it
through his eyes.

So maybe Marvel could avoid

World War II altogether
and bring him

into the present day.

In 2006, Avi Arad
hired screenwriter David Self

to write a Captain America film
for the new millennium.

So in that early iteration,
the first Captain America movie

was largely gonna take place
in present day.

However,
dabbling with this idea

of minimizing Captain America's
historical backstory

quickly came to an end
when director Joe Johnston

- came on board.
- They got a guy

who made a really great
World War II period movie

in The Rocketeer,
Joe Johnston, to direct it.

He also directed Jumanji,
Jurassic Park III.

And don't forget
Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.

But Joe Johnston was a legend
for other reasons, too.

He was an early employee of ILM.

Designed much
of the Star Wars characters

and spaceships
and things like that.

But Joe Johnston
wanted to do

what the other movies hadn't

and be true
to the character.

Joe would only do it
if the entire film could be

devoted to the 1940s.

And maybe Joe had a point.

That's what had
always made him compelling

in the comics is that he was
a World War II era comic book character.

I think you needed
that period in order

to understand the character.

The problem for Marvel

was that made Captain America

something few fans wanted.

Nostalgic.

No, something even worse...

- a period piece.
- When you look back

at the history of Hollywood,
historically period movies

make less money
and period action movies

almost always fail.
So for every Indiana Jones,

you've got ten
that don't work.

Ultimately, remaining faithful

to Captain America's
origin story won out.

Given that
all the Marvel movies,

for the most part,
were telling origin stories,

Captain America had to start
in World War II

because that's his origin story.

That was a risky move,
doing that World War II period piece.

You know, and saying,
"Is anybody going to accept that?"

Marvel's challenge:
taking a hero from another time

and reinventing him
for a new age.

If 21st century Cap
didn't take,

The Avengers, already
past the point of no return,

was surely doomed.

I'm sure the stress
of the situation

was weighing,
not just on Feige,

but everybody
else that was working there.

Director Joe Johnston
had the difficult task

of making
a figure from the past

relevant to modern audiences.

Especially when the story
was centered

less around
Captain America and more

the man behind the shield.

You had
to come at that head on.

You had to be sincere about it.

You had to like Steve Rogers

and root for him
and be on his side

in how earnest
he was in wanting

to just be a good person.

The last period
superhero film

Joe had made, The Rocketeer,
had bombed.

But DP Shelly Johnson
had faith and experience.

First film I did with Joe
was the third Jurassic Park.

He focuses on
a small human story

in this large
adventure setting

and I really admire
filmmakers who can do that.

Who can take
a large canvas like that,

but do something human
and kind of small with it.

But no matter
how human this story,

Cap's canvas
was going to be costly

and Perlmutter's loan
from Merrill Lynch

had been tapped out.

With Iron Man
costing $140 million,

The Hulk, $150 million,

Iron Man 2, $200 million,

Thor, $150 million.

All of which made
more than enough money

to satisfy Merrill Lynch
and pay back

that $525 million loan,

but in 2009,
when Disney bought Marvel,

Ike Perlmutter
would have a far larger

financial backer to answer to.

Even when Disney
had purchased Marvel,

Perlmutter was still running
Marvel Studios.

That meant that the money
flowed through him.

Fortunately for Perlmutter,

the dawn of the Disney era
had cast a warm light

on Marvel's finances.

They had the unlimited
checkbook of Disney

- to, uh, to back them up.
- Perlmutter's bosses

would be the next
prime movers in Marvel's story,

but not before
Captain America was launched

and right now
it was still just an idea

- waiting to happen.
- A couple of screenwriters

named Christopher Marcus
and Steven McFeely are hired

- to work on the screenplay.
- Rogers.

The plot:
deep in World War II,

skinny Steve Rogers
wants to stand up

and do the right thing;
volunteering to join the fight.

Here's a guy who's just
trying to prove to everybody

that he can help.
Nobody wants to give him

that chance.
That's all he wants.

He gets rejected
for obvious reasons.

- Sorry, son.
- He won't take no

for an answer, though,
and gets involved

in an experiment
to create super soldiers.

Long story short,
he becomes Captain America,

gets himself a kickass shield,
fights the bad guys,

and, most importantly
for The Avengers film,

comes into contact
with the Tesseract.

the Space Infinity Stone.

The stone drops into the ocean
and Captain America

sacrifices himself
crashing into the Arctic,

but not before he asks
Peggy Carter on a date.

A week.
Next Saturday.

You know, I still don't know
how to dance.

Steve?

Waking up in the present day,

he realizes he's missed it
by 50 years.

I loved
that it was all about him

wanting to go on a date

and finding
the right dance partner.

I mean,
that to me is just so lovely.

The complexity
of the Steve Rogers

Captain America character
meant finding

the right actor was crucial.

That's a really hard role.

How do you play that sincere,
all-American guy

with a little bit
of wry humor

and still you're just
rooting for him.

He's kind of the heart and soul
of the whole thing.

To play Captain America,

a number of actors
are in the running for the role.

Garrett Hedlund.

I think Chace Crawford
was in the running.

Sebastian Stan
was also in the running.

Sebastian Stan was one of,
I'm sure, the umpteen actors

of a certain
look and build and age

who came in to read
for Captain America.

But Chris Evans
is who Marvel wants.

Chris Evans, at the time,
kind of a known quantity.

He's not a huge movie star,
but he's been around.

The different kinds of roles
that he does,

I mean, he's amazing
in every freaking role.

Like Not Another Teen Movie,

Scott Pilgrim,
but while Chris seemed like

a good candidate,
there were a few concerns.

Probably is
most recognizable for his role

as Johnny Storm
in The Fantastic Four movies.

A new day is dawning!

The day
of the Fantastic Four.

So it seemed
that Chris Evans was already

a famous super hero
and not only that...

Fans were not terribly won over
by the first version,

uh, or the second.

- Flame on!
- The second movie,

Fantastic Four:
Rise of the Silver Surfer,

crashed and burned.
So, understandably...

Not everyone was convinced

that Evans
was the right choice.

Least of all, Chris Evans.

And so when Marvel asked
this ex-Fantastic Four member

to be their Captain America...

Chris Evans, when he's first
approached with this,

- is very hesitant.
- He was really allergic

to the idea of going back.

Uh, he turns the role down
multiple times

for a number of factors.
Number one,

he was worried that the movies
were gonna be bad

and so he was nervous.
He had already made

two superhero movies
and I don't think

he was incredibly happy
with the outcome of those.

And, number two,
he was again being presented

with a nine-picture contract
as Samuel L. Jackson had been.

Marvel movies
were big business.

So who wouldn't want
a guaranteed ticket

- on that gravy train?
- I think for a lot

of the actors,
there was a calculation

that being a big deal
in a Marvel movie

meant that they could be
a big deal in anything else.

So it's a sort of...

in a kind of a way
a bit of a loss leader

career proposition
for them.

Nine pictures
on this scale

could set an actor up for life.

"Thanks for the
nine-picture deal, mother effer."

And for Chris Evans,

that was the problem.

There was an awareness

of how transformative
it could be for his life

that he wasn't sure
he wanted to do.

Marvel had to try
very, uh, hard to get him

to, uh, agree to this role.

In the end,
it would take someone

with an iron will
to convince him.

That's exactly what I need
to make this work.

The thing that
finally pushed him over

the line is a phone call
from Robert Downey Jr.

to kind of assuage his fears
and--and talk him

into joining
the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

He eventually negotiated
the contract down

to six movies,
which was unique.

It was different.
It was not what the other actors

- had to sign on for.
- That's how much

faith Marvel had in Chris
as Cap.

Now, as for the rest
of the roles...

As trepidatious
as Chris Evans was

about playing Captain America,
Sebastian Stan has been

all-in on playing Bucky.

That's Bucky Barnes,

Captain America's sidekick
since that very first

issue in 1941 and not
to be forgotten, of course,

their arch enemy
for just as long...

- The Red Skull!
- Except this time,

The Red Skull
wouldn't be Italian.

He'd be Australian.

Well, played by
an Australian actor at least.

Hugo Weaving had been
in The Matrix movies.

Surprised to see me?

He was one of the major

supporting actors
in The Lord of the Rings movies.

Isildur!

He's a huge known name.

And for the female lead...

There was a dearth
of strong female characters

within the MCU
in the early going.

Marvel would pick
Hayley Atwell to play

one of them;
Agent Peggy Carter.

There's no one else
who could've played that role.

You can't--
There's million of actresses

who would be phenomenal in it,

but there is only one
Hayley Atwell for that role.

JJ Feild was cast
as Montgomery Falsworth,

a member
of the Howling Commandos.

Right from his first
introduction to the film,

he knew this was
no ordinary movie.

It was all very top secret.
You get the whole script

and then you gotta give it back.

There's a very ceremonial
shredding of your script

in front of a couple of lawyers
and lots of NDAs.

I got the part maybe because
I had met Kenneth Branagh

- for Thor.
- But JJ missed out

on the part
for a convincing reason.

"I can see
that there's a bit of doubt."

No, I didn't get the part.

When I was doing
Captain America,

I thought back to that moment
testing for Thor

with Ken Branagh.
I remember the first time

on set
when Chris Evans said...

I'm...

Captain America.

And there's zero doubt.

You look at all the actors
in a Marvel film

and in these iconic roles,
there is zero doubt.

I am Iron Man.

They are 100% sure
that they are

the superheroes
that they've been cast as.

And as for
the rest of the cast...

Now you have
a lot of A-list actors,

great talent playing this
comic character

they bring in
to make it believable.

All of them are so solid.
Stanley Tucci.

You had, uh,
Tommy Lee Jones.

He's a bit of a grouch,
but a loveable grouch, you know?

But there was
one major character

that hadn't been cast.
Well, created: Skinny Steve.

Skinny Steve is a huge part
of who Captain America is.

But turning
muscle-bound Chris Evans

into a scrawny
Steve Rogers

was turning
into a major problem.

Well... yeah, um...

We're still kinda working on that.

If Skinny Steve didn't work,

the entire film would be in jeopardy.

Captain America
may be the first Avenger,

but this was the fifth film
in Marvel's

relentless push to
The Avengers film and beyond.

And continuing on their work
from Thor,

Charlie Wen and his partner
Ryan Meinerding

were overseeing the look
of the entire

Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Ryan and I were sort of put
into different departments.

We had to make sure
you're working really closely

with these other departments
to make sure

that that vision gets taken
all the way through.

Charlie's most important job,

at least to begin with,
was designing

Captain America's uniform.

How do you design it
so that his costume--

his iconic costume,
feels like

it was actually purposed?

It doesn't feel hokey
like he's actually a soldier.

There's a good influence
from The Ultimates comics.

That's already been put
into the minds of comic readers.

So it felt like, "Okay, great.
We can also draw from that."

So with the Captain
on his way

to being suited and booted,
Charlie jumped

out of the frying pan
and into the fire

of Red Skull, Cap's nemesis.

In terms of trying
to figure out Red Skull...

And inside Germany, signs of

deadly strain
within the German high command.

I spent a lot of time
researching Hitler's henchmen.

But his terrifying appearance

gave Charlie
a few sleepless nights.

You know, in the beginning
I was more free flowing

and--and so the amount
of changes I was pushing

was--was quite a bit more.

It went from, like,
almost alienesque feel

on some of the costuming
to kinda getting pulled back

closer to what,
you know, Nazis would wear.

It's kinda like tuning an instrument.

You wanna go past it
and then you get to get

a sense of where your boundaries are.

- And you start pulling back.
- The scale

of the film was off the charts.

Hundreds of sets were being designed to
create an entire world.

To do that, Tim Burton's
go-to production designer,

Rick Heinrichs, was brought in.

Rick Heinrichs had
an interesting job where he had

to design the future
from the point of view

of... the past.
And the meetings

that he and Joe had would consist of

both of them kinda sitting there
with a sketch pad

and just kinda
talking about ideas, you know?

"What do you think
of this motorcycle?"

Or, you know, "Hey, I was
thinking this for the expo."

And, you know,
"How about this for his helmet?"

Or something just--
And they would just draw things.

Joe Johnston
had a singular vision

for the first Avenger.
While that vision on screen

was a period piece,
the way they would film it

was very much of the future.

He said,
"We're gonna shoot digital."

Which was--
Which we hadn't done at that time

and--and I don't think even
Marvel had done at that time.

A lot of people were shaking their heads

with the--with
the digital decision on that.

Everything I had shot
up to that point had been film.

Probably my first choice
would've been,

"Okay, it's a 1940s period piece,

I'm gonna shoot film."
But it was such a strong

desire from Joe, I, you know--
I wanted to do it for him.

One major bonus
with shooting digitally--

the workflow with visual effects

would be seamless
and The First Avenger

had a lot of visual effects,

including turning buff Chris Evans

into scrawny Steve Rogers.

Luckily, they had a big-time
visual effects supervisor

who knew pretty much everything.

Chris Townsend,
the effects supervisor,

was fantastic.
About the only thing

he didn't know how to do
was... how to do skinny Steve.

He had no real method
on how to do that yet.

And this wasn't just a few shots.

Steve had to be skinny and short until

he became Captain America,
which wouldn't happen

until over 30 minutes into the film.

If skinny Steve
ended up being a failure,

- the whole film would fail.
- And Marvel

- would not be having that.
- They're extremely active.

They're in every meeting.
They're sitting right behind you.

You know, Kevin Feige
is right behind you.

During prep, we must've shot
three or four different tests.

We would shoot Chris.
We would shoot a body double.

We'd shoot the different plates
that we would need

to kind of either shrink Chris down
or do a head replacement.

There's all kinds of
things going on.

All the tests failed
and the heat was well and truly

on the visual effects team
to come up with a solution,

but skinny Steve was
only half of Captain America.

The other was this man,
although he didn't know it at first.

I was sent to the fight coordinator.

I'm like, "Well, what is this fight?"

He said, "Oh, it's to double
Captain America."

I'm like, "Oh, my God
this is amazing!"

Veteran
stunt performer Mike Lambert

was inhabiting a childhood dream.

Comic books.
Every Saturday, my dad

used to come back with,
like, a Spider-Man

or Captain America, X-Men.

So I got into comic books that way.

Mike's audition alone
was worthy of a superhero.

It was one of the hardest
auditions I've ever done.

You had to come out with your shield,
you had to go behind this truck,

take out two guards,
you had to mini-tramp up

onto the truck,
dive off, go into another fight scene,

taking on four or five other guys.

You had to run, mini-tramp,
summersault through some

cardboard boxes, roll out, and then

into another fight scene,
then throw the shield,

dive roll, pick the shield up,
and then the special effects

blowing mortars off
while this is going off,

and then you had to pose
with the shield at the end.

Mike landed the role.

Lady Luck was on my side,
and they picked me

- to be Captain America.
- A perfect fit

to double as Chris Evans,
but visual effects

still hadn't cracked
the problem of skinny Steve

and how to get Chris Evans looking...

the opposite of Chris Evans.

The couple weeks
before shooting, I finally said,

"Hey, are we gonna see
any of these...

skinny Steve tests?"

He said, "Well... yeah, um...

we're still kinda working on that

and there's nothing to show yet."

And we were starting
in two weeks.

How are they going to do this?

How, indeed?

By the middle of 2010,

Captain America:
The First Avenger

began filming on the soundstages

of Pinewood Studios in England.

I remember asking,
"Oh, so which stage are we on?"

They said, "Which stage?
Oh, no, we've got A to J stage."

The scale kind of sank in.

"Oh, you have half of Pinewood."

And you could go and look
in these stages

and all these different worlds were built.

You know, there were...
over a hundred sets.

"Oh, look,
there's the Hydra plane.

Oh, look, there's the mountain."

They just built them.

That scale I'd never seen before.

But for Captain America's

central visual effect,
scale wasn't helping.

They needed to shrink their lead,

but by day one of shooting,
the filmmakers still didn't know how.

If skinny Steve ended up being a failure,

- the whole film would fail.
- Fortunately,

Captain America's
director had experience.

After all, he had already
shrunk the kids

- in Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.
- We're all the size of boogers!

How hard could shrinking

just one guy be?
To get less,

they would have to shoot more,
filming each scene

in several different ways
to cover their bases

for post-production.

Our first set-up,
the whole platoon lined up

and they were doing push-ups.

So skinny Steve
is doing push ups, right?

And you can imagine.
You've got Chris doing push-ups,

you got his body double
doing push-ups.

"How are they going to do this?"

Filming immediately
slowed to a crawl.

Chris would always do the take first.

It was very important for Chris
to put that performance in.

Chris' skinny Steve body double,

played by Leander Deeny,
would also have to perform the shot.

We shot every conceivable kind

of foreground plate, background plate.

Often doing it twice.

Once for the body...

...and once for the head.

And as a result
of these complications...

Every close-up of Chris
was taking two hours

because there were so many
visual effects elements to get

because they didn't quite have
the techniques

so they wanted to cover
themselves by basically shooting

plates for... any technique.

Skinny Steve was turning
into a fat problem.

Shooting soon fell behind schedule,

but at least
the one body double that was

comparatively easy to shoot
was ready to go on time.

I think probably a week
before we started shooting,

I was rehearsing
the main end fight scene,

uh, where Captain America
fights The Red Skull,

and I'd like to say--
I like to lie and say,

"Yeah, I jumped off
an 80-foot building on fire."

Nah, it was like a six-foot platform

when I dive-rolled off
and I blew my knee out.

Sadly,
Mike had earned his 4F.

I was devastated because...

three months rehearsal
doing all the fights and stunts

to play Captain America,
you know, a stunt double

in one of the first MCU movies,
and then, yeah,

I was like, you know,
next--next six weeks,

eight weeks on crutches.

No more stunt Steve
and no sign of skinny Steve.

Thankfully, regular Steve,
played by Chris Evans,

was delivering a tight,
well-formed performance.

We shot the scene
where he comes out of the--

- the pod--
- The chamber that's

caused him
to become Captain America,

and his shirt is off
and his chest is glistening.

You can kinda see, "Wow.
He's--He's really worked hard

these last few months."
It's pretty amazing.

When Steve isn't skinny,
that's not visual effects,

as one of his castmates
would learn firsthand.

Hayley Atwell as Peggy Carter
could not resist

touching his pecs.

Um...

you look taller.

That was not scripted,
that was just her,

sort of, listening to her
innate urge to--

to touch the sort of
impossible chest of Chris Evans.

But JJ Feild and the rest

of the Howling Commandos
were getting close

to Chris Evans in a different way.

The first stuff we shot was
the camp where we set off from.

Immediately,
we were like a team of lads

feeling like we really had
won the lottery,

and we had a really close bond,
and I think that showed.

And I'm sure
Joe planned it that way,

that we would be in a place where

we we're all together as a team

and take that into the rest
of the shoot.

Joe knew how to inspire
his crew, which was good.

With Marvel watching so closely,
he was under the gun.

He pushed his team to their limits.

When we shoot in England,
Joe likes to shoot

a continuous day,
so we don't break for lunch.

In America, you call them
French Hours

where you can just
push on through lunch.

In Britain,
we call them rolling lunches,

but as long as we're in the pub
at the end of the day,

that's absolutely fine.

But rolling out
of the pub on a school night

certainly didn't make
the next day any easier.

We were, uh, doing the scene
where Chris is running,

chasing the bomber
as it's starting to take off.

I'm taking exposure reading
near him and he goes,

"Shelly..."

I could see under the mask
he was kind of going white.

He said,
"...I went drinking with Stanley

last night 'cause he--
it was his last day--

at this moment,
I'm literally sweating tequila."

He said, "If there's a way..."

"...that you could do this in one take,

I would really appreciate that."

But he did it.
God love him. He did it.

But as pressure
on the shoot mounted,

Joe Johnston wasn't
as understanding as Shelly.

When you make a film
for Joe Johnston,

you make his film.

He'll suggest a shot or a light effect
or something and, uh,

and I'll tell him,
"Oh, sure, I can do that."

He'll ask me,
"How you gonna do it?"

And I'll tell him, "Well, I don't know,

- but I'm gonna figure it out."
- On occasion,

Joe's requests verged on impossible.

In the beginning
of the film, they cut a hole

into the roof of this bomber
that's trapped in the ice,

and he wanted a parallel shaft of light

coming down through this hole.

But the light doesn't come down
in a column like that,

it comes down kind of in a cone.

- He was on me about this.
- The answer

was good old-fashioned
smoke and mirrors.

We had set some mirrors up,
a couple different mirrors.

The idea is to back the light off

and the more you back that light off,

the straighter that column becomes.

So Shelly let there be light.

"Oh. Oh, I didn't know
you could do that.

Okay. Great."

But I think he was
fully prepared for me to...

completely mess that up.

Facing another
seemingly impossible task

was Charlie Wen
and he discovered a problem

that was so big,
it could destroy the universe.

Or at least
the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Halfway through
Captain America...

I just felt like,
"Wow, this is not working.

- This is not working."
- Because Charlie

wasn't just working
on Captain America."

The Avengers was in full swing
and Charlie was stretched.

Charlie Wen feared
critical knowledge of the MCU

was being lost from film to film
as staff came and went.

On most films,
they're restaffing every time.

We had communication gaps.

We had to make some major changes.

We really needed that one group

that's like gonna be doing every film

because, you know, we need a focus

on these characters,
starting with the stories,

but also having a love and knowledge

- of the comic book history.
- Charlie needed

talented artists
who also knew the material.

Essentially, trying to have that
many films that's tied together,

we're gonna run into a lot of problems.

Charlie Wen
had identified an issue...

I just felt like,
"Wow, this is not working."

They're restaffing every time.

...and raised the red flag to Marvel.

Kevin, Lou, Victoria, us, you know,

we ended up having
a lot of talks about this.

There was simply
no playbook for what Marvel was doing.

It was the equivalent of making
five Bond films at the same time.

Bond. James Bond.

They needed
a new industry standard,

and so they created one:

a dedicated
visual development department

that would retain key staff
and their ideas from movie to movie.

It was the big thing
that we completely changed

in the whole film pipeline.

It did set a different kind of tone

of how to create connected films.

It was a game changer,

providing the continuity
Charlie needed

to guarantee Marvel could keep
building the MCU.

It became the one department
that was actually working

- on every film.
- While Charlie Wen

worked out how to manage
all the problems in the universe,

the visual effects department
had just one problem:

- Skinny Steve.
- All through shooting,

we saw no tests at all. Nothing.

Flying blind
meant certain scenes

suddenly became very tricky.

There was one difficult shot where

Steve has just been
in a little fistfight.

And Bucky comes up
and he puts his arm around...

- small Steve.
- Come on, man.

But this warm embrace
was met with a cold reception

from the effects department
and they asked...

"Is there any way that he can
not put his arm around him?"

'Cause that, like,
makes their job literally

a thousand times more difficult.

The answer is,
"No. It has to be there."

You know, "We have to have
that bond there."

So we built Bucky up on a little walkway

so at least his arm could be
in the right position.

- He was a good 18 inches up.
- If Skinny Steve

was an example of minimizing
a character's on-screen presence,

Red Skull was the opposite,

and Shelly was worried the film's villain

- had become too big.
- I was concerned that

he might be too over the top
as--as a villain.

But after seeing
Hugo Weaving in the role,

Shelly soon changed his mind.

Cut off one head...

two more shall take its place.

I tip my hat to actors
like Hugo Weaving

who can do that, and it's not easy.

He was dying in there.
He would look down the table

and, I mean,
sweat would just pour out of...

Joe had a very special plan

for unleashing him on the audience.

The first time you see him,
Toby comes in,

then he turns the light off and he's
in a hundred percent silhouette.

We made sure he was ink black,

hundred percent silhouette,
but Toby looks over and sees

these big mounds of red oil paint
on the artist's palette.

Red Skull masked his face

with a mask of a face
to avoid showing his true face...

a red skull.

I think the first time
you really see him,

when he peels the face off,
it's horrific.

Joe knew for the film to succeed,

he needed to both shock
and amaze fans.

One scene in particular,
he felt could do with

- a little bit of manhandling.
- There's a scene

where they're in the suborbital
bomber, they drop out

and they're just kind of in a struggle

on the outside of
that little fighter plane.

That was a little plane
that was on a gimbal.

So the gimbal movement

Joe felt may be a little too... tame.

Too polite. So Joe says,
"Let me on that thing."

And, so, Joe takes this little gimbal
and, I mean, starts...

slamming it left and right
and up and down.

I think that the special effects guys
were horrified.

While Joe Johnston
got hands-on with the props,

he was content to let his actors roam,

and JJ Feild was happy to go off-book.

It sounds rather...
fun, actually.

It was a nice marriage
between a very, very tight script

that they write,
but then there was freedom

for us to try and find
a bit of humor and...

bit of charm in it.

I...beg your pardon.

When I throw Captain his shield,
I think that we did

about 20 different versions
of what I said, you know?

"Hey, catch this."
Or, you know, "Don't drop it."

Or whatever the hell
I was coming up with on the day

- and then one sticks in.
- You might need this!

Which is great. It's great.

It's a very fluid process.

JJ was even able to improvise

a bit of home into the film.

When we're sliding down
onto the train,

the, um, the--I've got
this line, "Mind the gap."

You miss that window,
we're bugs on a windshield.

- Mind the gap.
- In the London Underground,

that's what they say
when the doors shut.

Mind the gap.

But it actually came from
one of Union Jack's catchphrases.

And Union Jack,
a wealthy British ally

of Captain America,
had very close ties

to JJ Feild's character, Falsworth.

'Cause Falsworth
goes on to become

the first of the Union Jack empire
that passes down to kids to kids.

Marvel learned
that Disney had a bigger gap to mind:

the one between its costs
on Marvel films and the return.

Disney was missing out on
distribution rights held by Paramount.

Executives decided that had to change.

So when they buy Marvel Studios,
there were still a few films

that Paramount Pictures is due
to release as part of its contract.

Including Thor
and Captain America.

Marvel Studios
was not a full-fledged studio.

They did not have a distribution arm.

Marvel Studios bankrolled the movie,

but Paramount paid for the distribution

and for a healthy degree
of the marketing.

Paramount got
a cut of the box office and...

Paramount was seeing
that money back times over.

And Disney now owning Marvel

could provide all that distribution
and marketing and more.

Disney later decides,
"We just want to cut to the chase.

We wanna buy these last two films

from you so that we can distribute them."

Those last two films are
The Avengers and Iron Man 3.

The fact that Paramount
let Marvel Studios go

is one of the worst mistakes
in Hollywood history.

Paramount received $115 million

for the distribution rights
to Iron Man 3 and The Avengers.

Disney would go on to reap
over $320 million

for The Avengers alone,
but first it had to get

its number one Avenger wrapped.

- What makes you so special?
- Nothing.

Whether audiences
would fall in love

with Steve Rogers loomed large
over Kevin Feige's head.

Captain America is the linchpin
of The Avengers.

Let's hear it for Captain America!

And as such, audiences needed

to love him if they were
going to show up to see

Marvel's mega-budget finale.

No one knew
where it was going to go.

Marvel had bet big,
working up to an Avengers movie

that would then be the springboard
for yet further Marvel movies.

Captain America has to be great.

That movie has to be successful,

or you're not making The Avengers.

All expectations were hanging
off the scrawny frame of skinny Steve.

Nothing started coming back
until they were in post, and then...

Kinda makes you think twice
about enlisting, huh?

- Nope.
- It was amazing.

By covering all the bases,

it turned out that all those
complicated set-ups

were worth the trouble after all.

They used pretty much every technique.

There was no one thing they did.

Look, just give me a chance.

Skinny Steve was--was great.

Steve Rogers.

You know, the technology was
amazing. I bought into...

- you know, weedy Chris Evans.
- Thanks... I think.

But in early screenings,
multiple scenes crashed and burned.

- It wasn't your fault.
- An emotional moment

between Steve Rogers
and Peggy Carter

after the death of Bucky
was savaged.

We re-shot that scene.

I think they were concerned
with Captain America

looking too weak
or something like that.

To me, that was the whole point
of the scene

was to-- to see that side of him.

When they put
the new scene in there,

they liked it even less.

So they immediately threw it out,
put that scene back in.

The initial screenings also brought

criticism for the fight sequences.

- Who the hell are you?
- They went, "No.

Captain America's
gotta be better than this."

The action--and especially
Captain America's

fighting skills could've been...

rather than a seven out of ten,
he could've been an eleven.

We did some great stuff at the start

and he was doing a lot of these
fantastic jump-spinning kicks,

and I don't know who kiboshed it.

I don't know who said no to it.

It could've been a lot better,
you know?

The First Avenger
was displaying every sign

of a train coming off the rails.

There was probably about
a 20-day reshoot, I believe.

It was a significant reshoot.

Cap, Bucky,
and the Howling Commandos

fighting through Hydra soldiers
to get to Dr. Zola in the train sequence.

We set up
much more of a predicament

with the second time we shot it.

There never was going to be
a set in that locomotive.

We were near
the end of the shoot by now,

and Rick Heinrichs said,
"I'm--I'm out of money.

I have--I have nothing
to build the set with."

So production
designer Rick Heinrichs

was forced to go back to his roots

and construct a set from scraps

salvaged from earlier in the film.

If you freeze frame,
you will see parts

of every other set.
You'll see a piece of a bomb

as the big turbine in the middle.

You'll see all the dials from Hydra.

You'll see switches and wall pieces
from Schmidt's lair.

He Frankensteined a set for us

that is absolutely beautiful.

But the reshoot cloud
did have a silver lining.

Samuel L. Jackson's
protracted negotiations

had ended with him signing
a critical nine-picture deal.

His next assignment,
a pivotal scene at the end

- of Captain America.
- The end of the film,

Steve Rogers is pulled
into the present day

and comes face to face
with Nick Fury...

You've been asleep, Cap,
for almost 70 years.

...setting up a really exciting

toe-to-toe in The Avengers.

- You gonna be okay?
- Yeah.

The pressure of
filming such a critical scene

had little effect on Jackson.

Right in the middle
of Times Square.

It was so funny
'cause I looked over him,

Sam was just leaning in a doorway,

and he had a paperback book,
and he was kinda just

reading a book,
just a guy in a doorway,

and there was
every kind of tourist...

going by, and none
of these tourists had any idea

they were walking past
Samuel Jackson.

He was in plain sight.
He just made himself disappear.

Reshoots wrapped
at the end of April 2011,

and with Joss Whedon
already underway

filming The Avengers,
he was called upon

to film the all-important
end credits sequence

for Captain America.

You here with a mission, sir?

I am.

Trying to get me back in the world?

Trying to save it.

It is a perfect steppingstone
to The Avengers.

They also put the very unsubtle subtitle

"The First Avenger" to underline,

"This guy's gonna be
the prelude to The Avengers.

Get ready. Get ready.
Get ready."

And to cement the hype,

producers put a trailer for The Avengers
after the post-credit sequence.

As a way to entice people
to realize that it was all

gonna come together
in The Avengers movie.

By the time
Captain America was released,

Marvel would be months
into the production

on The Avengers.

However, to direct Marvel's
most important film to date,

Kevin Feige had put the fate

of the Marvel Cinematic
Universe in the hands of...

a television writer.

He was mainly known
for TV at that point.

They just brought it to him
and they're like, "You direct it."

Would Joss Whedon
be out of his depth?