Falcon and the Winter Soldier Star Anthony Mackie Was Afraid of "Tarnishing" Marvel With Disney+ Series

After a year away from the spotlight, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is back in full force thanks to the franchise's first ever TV projects on Disney+. WandaVision quickly became a worldwide phenomenon, following in the footsteps of Star Wars: The Mandalorian and absolutely dominating the weekend conversations on social media. Next week, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier will take over and aim for the same level of popularity. Right now, there is just as much love for the Marvel TV shows as there is for the movies, which is something that Anthony Mackie was worried about when he was approached with The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

After Avengers: Endgame, Mackie got a call from Marvel Studios about setting up a meeting with him. Like many fans, Mackie assumed that he was going to be leading a new Captain America film. "I'm walking in with the assumption that the new Captain America movie is going to be me," the actor told The New York Times.

Instead, Kevin Feige and the folks at Marvel sat Mackie down and pitched The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, one of the first TV shows in the MCU. That concerned Mackie, because he thought that a TV show wouldn't be able to hold a candle to the movie universe that had already been established.

"I was taken aback, mostly because I didn't want to tarnish the Marvel moniker," Mackie said.

As we've learned from WandaVision and the trailers for Falcon, there won't be any "tarnishing" going on with the Marvel TV shows. The Disney+ projects are getting bigger budgets than most TV shows could ever dream of, allowing them to look at feel as big as the MCU films. There's very clearly nothing for Mackie to worry about anymore.

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier follows the story of Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes after the events of Avengers: Endgame. Captain America famously passed his iconic shield to Sam at the end of the film, and this new series will deal with what happens next.

Mackie stars in the series alongside Sebastian Stan, Emily VanCamp, Daniel Bruhl, and Wyatt Russell.

Are you looking forward to the debut of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier on March 19th? Let us know in the comments!