Captain America: Civil War Airport Battle Explained By The Writers

Captain America: Civil War features the biggest super hero battle in cinematic history. In a 17-minute sequence shot completely in IMAX, Iron Man, Captain America, and their respective allies (which combine for almost a dozen total heroes) unleash every last ability and fighting skill they have.

Masterminding such a scene requires a lot of collaboration. Location scouting, CGI components, key moments, and choreography are all parts of a gigantic spinning wheel.

ComicBook.com had the chance to catch up with the writers of Captain America: Civil War prior to the film’s release to ask how such an epic scene comes to be and how exactly a writer can envision such a scene while sitting at their computer, months prior to shooting and miles away from any sort of set.

Be warned, major spoilers for Captain America: Civil War follow.

“We are integral to it but we are not the only ones,” says Stephen McFeely.

We do the first version of it which is mainly shots in the dark about effects and things like that,” Christopher Markus adds. “It’s mainly deciding what characters need to interact and who has the biggest issues and where that should come. Some people have relatively comic friction. Natasha and Clint have beat each other up several times before but there are some people who have very serious issues together, so, you want to pace them and place them so that the thing has a shape that it’s getting more serious as it goes on until it becomes as grim as possible and we break Rhodie’s back.”

“For example, that was always… We went through hundreds of iterations from the script level to a visual effects level,” McFeely chimes back in. “From jump street: Giant Man, Rhodie goes down, Vision is the one that sends him there, that’s what stops it enough for [Bucky and Captain America] to get away. Always the same but many things changed around that. We do our best early and we keep coming back and writing versions of that but every time we come back and write a version of it, we have more material, so somebody from visual effects has come up with a gag and, ‘Oh, we’ve gotta use that.’ Or, you get Spider-Man, and you go, ‘Well, I guess Spider-Man and Cap need three minutes.’”

Do you think the team behind Captain America: Civil War nailed it with the airport battle sequence? You’re one of many.

Captain America: Civil War is now playing in theaters.