Marvel at ‘Falcon and the Winter Soldier’
Disney+ series’ goal: ‘the best action we’ve ever seen’
As the second Marvel series to pop on Disney+ “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” carries a heavy burden.
Right out of the gate the brand new streaming channel scored mightily with “The Mandalorian,” its “Star Wars” spinoff. Two months ago Marvel’s “WandaVision” with Elizabeth Olsen as the Red Witch hiding out in TV Sitcom Land started a cultural conversation and looks to continue for future seasons.
With a TV-size “Falcon” starring the big-screen superheroes Sam Wilson/Falcon (Anthony Mackie) and Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan), the question is simple, Mackie said last weekend in a virtual press conference:
“We’ve talked about this and I’ll speak for Sebastian,” he said with a laugh, “our goal was to not mess it up. We didn’t want to be the first crappy Marvel project. Our job was to take the torch and not make a bad show.”
“With a bunch of filmmakers who had never done TV before, this was meant to prove to ourselves and the actors that just because it’s on TV it couldn’t be as big as a movie,” explained Marvel honcho Kevin Feige, 47.
“Which is why this first episode starts off with a bang. If we’re doing a series with Falcon and Winter Soldier we need the best action we’ve ever seen. You also learn who the heck they are.”
For Bucky, revealed to be 106 years old, he’s in therapy, suffering from PTSD.
“I always learn something from this character,” said Stan, 38, of playing Bucky for 10 years. “You grow with the character.”
Initially, he admitted, “I think everyone will attest to this: I was freaked out. We had established the character in a certain way and with certain things I was comfortable with tonally.
“Then this was, What is he like now? That sense of humor really came into the series — and his dynamic with Sam Wilson. And my own dynamic with Anthony and marrying the two. That was scary and exciting.”
What viewers will see in these six episodes is Bucky “accepting his past and reeducating himself with the world he’s in. The dreams and principals he once had no longer serve him. He’s in an interesting journey on the show.”
As the opening air battle clearly shows, the action and stunt work is, Stan said, “Pretty on par with the films but actually more intense if totally the same as the movies.”
“The great thing is nothing was watered down,” added Mackie, 42. “The same stunt guys on the films are the same on this show, which is more physical, with more hand to hand combat and us utilizing our strengths instead of something else.
“Because of that the stunt guys had a field day and Sebastian and I did a lot of stunt work! So some of what you see is us.”