It’s a brave new era for the shield in Captain America: Brave New World, premiering February 14, 2025. While Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) finally embraced the moniker by the end of the Disney+ series The Falcon And The Winter Soldier, we hadn’t seen him fully step into the role of Captain America. Now, the first trailer shows Sam charting his own path as the patriotic hero, and Mackie charting his own path as a Marvel leading man.
Sam has big shoes to fill succeeding an original Avenger, Steve Rogers (Chris Evans). Director Julius Onah has described Brave New World as a “paranoid thriller,” historically a successful subgenre for this corner of the MCU (Winter Soldier remains a top-tier Marvel offering). Further smoothing the transition is the movie’s connection to the greater Marvel Universe with the return of Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross (originally played by William Hurt, now by Harrison Ford) and the scientist Samuel Sterns (a.k.a. the Leader, played by Tim Blake Nelson), who both first appeared in The Incredible Hulk.
The production of Brave New World faced greater challenges than passing the shield over to Sam Wilson. The fourth Captain America film was originally subtitled New World Order, which was uncomfortably close to antisemitic conspiracy theories. That decision was more questionable because the movie is set to introduce Sabra (Shira Haas), the MCU’s first Israeli superhero. Sabra is a Mossad agent who has been depicted in the comics fighting stereotypically Arab villains. While Marvel Studios promised a “new approach” to Sabra, the inclusion of the character has only become more dubious in the wake of Israel’s ongoing bombings in Palestine.
That brings us to the movie’s extensive reshoots, a process that Mackie said “isn’t a big deal” and happens on every Marvel movie he’s ever done. That may be true—as we’ve pointed out before, last year’s strikes gave the studio even more time to toy with the film’s direction. But shoehorning in an entire new villain during reshoots is a significant change, and one that may raise eyebrows about how well this installment is testing. Given the uneven reception Marvel’s gotten in its post-Endgame era, Sam Wilson’s Cap can hopefully rise to all these challenges.