Captain America: Brave New World Production Described as “Tense Marvel Shoot” With “A-List Egos”

To quote Marvin Gaye’s “Trouble Man,” “There’s only three things that’s for sure: taxes, death and trouble.” Captain America: Brave New World, starring Anthony Mackie as the star-spangled successor to Chris Evans’ retired Super-Soldier, was a troubled production, according to a new report. The Marvel Studios movie was reportedly beset by expensive reshoots, unfavorable test screenings, and “A-list egos” and “diva” behavior — causing one anonymous crew member to describe the Hulk-sized shoot as “tense” and plagued by a “politicized” environment.

Vulture reports that the $180 million-budgeted Captain America 4 underwent a round of “costly” reshoots, which were first reported in the press in May 2024. Directed by MCU first timer Julius Onah (The Cloverfield Paradox), the film wrapped principal photography in the spring of 2023 but then returned to Atlanta for a 22-day shoot. Marvel punched up the film with new action sequences, adding The Boys actor Giancarlo Esposito in a villain role (later revealed to be Seth Voelker/Sidewinder) and removing WWE wrestler Seth Rollins as a member of the Serpent Society.

RELATED: Captain America: Brave New World Rotten Tomatoes Score Ranks Near the Bottom of the MCU

While Brave New World wrapped principal photography before the writers strike and the actors strike shut down most of Hollywood in 2023, it was reported at the time that its post-production process was “hampered and delayed,” causing Disney to push the film from July 26, 2024 (a date that went to Deadpool & Wolverine) to Feb. 14, 2025, Marvel’s first February release since 2023’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania underperformed with a $106 million opening weekend.

According to Vulture, the reshoots were a course correction following test screenings that a crew member described as “disastrous,” resulting in Esposito’s late addition and major sequences being cut or reworked. Although Cap 4 (retitled from New World Order) has been characterized as an espionage/political thriller, Vulture reports that the character of newly elected U.S. President Thaddeus Ross/Red Hulk (Harrison Ford, replacing the late William Hurt), “created uncomfortable political resonances” to President Donald Trump — this after Marvel said it was taking a “new approach” to the comic book character Sabra after Israeli actress Shira Haas was announced in the role in 2022. Then, amid the Israel-Hamas war, it was clarified that Ruth Bat-Seraph is not a Mossad agent like her comics counterpart, but a former Black Widow turned “high-ranking government U.S. official.”

“I think everyone on the crew knew this is probably not going to be a good film,” the crew member told Vulture, with the source adding, “We had a lot of frustrations on set.”

Regarding the back-and-forth with the inclusion or exclusion of the Serpent Society, the source said, “It was on, then it was off, then it was on again. That’s very expensive to do. My co-workers who spent more time on Brave New World than I did said, ‘Yeah, this has been a really rough production.’” According to the crew member, Disney executives tried to temper political allusions to reach a broader audience (a palpable move that has been criticized in critics’ mixed reviews).

“People are conspiracy theorists. Some people think the original title New World Order means ‘Jews run the world’ — and now there’s a war going on. It’s like, all these things that were not predicted [when Cap 4 was given the production green-light] were coming to fruition: Trump, the war in Gaza, the tension in America right now,” Vulture quotes the crew member as saying.

Ford, now 82, has a reputation as a curmudgeon, but the crew member described the Star Wars and Indiana Jones icon as “one of the crankiest performers” they ever dealt with and described Ford as a “diva.” (According to Vulture, another source close to production said that there’s “no truth” that Ford was “unusually challenging,” and the star was seen palling around with his co-stars in good spirits at Tuesday’s red carpet premiere.)

According to the crew member, Ford seemed to hate the motion capture process to turn into the Red Hulk (even though he “hulked out” onstage at San Diego Comic-Con and has since spent the press tour praising the fun he’s had joining the MCU.)

when Harrison was done, he was done. Everyone was trying to scramble to make him happy. That made for a very awkward work environment.

“Reshoots are a part of making any movie like this with a big budget. But this isn’t Marvel’s first rodeo,” the source said. “Entire sequences we shot won’t make it into the film, and that’s very expensive. I’m not going to say the director was not equipped to handle that production. Basically, dealing with A-list egos was the issue. It was mainly just Harrison Ford. So that was a little disappointing.”

They continued, “At the end of the day, it was the most tense Marvel shoot I’ve ever worked on. Everyone kind of felt their buttholes tightening a little bit. It’s like, Ugh.”

Marvel Studios’ Captain America: Brave New World — starring Anthony Mackie, Danny Ramirez, Shira Haas, Carl Lumbly, Xosha Roquemore, Giancarlo Esposito, Liv Tyler, Tim Blake Nelson, and Harrison Ford — is in theaters Friday.