Falcon and Winter Soldier's Anthony Mackie Compares Marvel Show to a Tom Clancy Movie

When Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) and Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) begrudgingly partner up in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, the Marvel Studios original series is part odd-couple buddy-comedy and part Tom Clancy spy thriller. After the events of Avengers: Endgame, where a 112-year-old Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) relinquishes the mantle and star-spangled shield of Captain America, the high-flying Falcon and the metal-armed Winter Soldier must work together as they uphold the first Avenger's legacy. Like Captain America: Civil War, which paired the squabbling superheroes on Team Cap, the "fire-and-ice dynamic" of the bickering buddies continues in Falcon and Winter Soldier:

"There's a real chemistry there," head writer Malcolm Spellman told Entertainment Weekly. "Imagine getting to write the first installment of a buddy-cop series, knowing exactly what the rhythm and flavor is with the two characters before you even start."

As seen in the record-breaking Super Bowl trailer, which sends Sam and Bucky to government-ordered therapy, there's "an odd-couple kind of back-and-forth there," Stan said. "Like, 'I don't really like you, but I might need you.'"

The six-episode series from The Americans and Marvel's The Punisher director Kari Skogland maintains the tone established in 2014's Captain America: The Winter Soldier, a spy-thriller where a believed-dead Barnes resurfaces as a brainwashed assassin targeting Rogers, Wilson, and Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson).

"We didn't lose that feeling of security and espionage," Mackie teased. "It still feels like you're in a Philip K. Dick novel [or] a Tom Clancy movie. But at the same time, it's Sebastian and I, and we're idiots, so you get more of us being ourselves."

Along with Sam and Bucky, the action-packed Captain America spin-off brings back the long-missing Sharon Carter (Emily VanCamp) — an on-the-run former Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. who worked under super-spy Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) in The Winter Soldier — and the villain Baron Helmut Zemo (Daniel Brühl), who disassembled the Avengers in Civil War.

Following the events of Avengers: Endgame, Sam Wilson/Falcon (Anthony Mackie) and Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan) team up in a global adventure that tests their abilities — and their patience — in Marvel Studios' The Falcon and The Winter Soldier.

Starring Anthony Mackie, Sebastian Stan, Emily VanCamp, Daniel Brühl, Erin Kellyman, and Wyatt Russell, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier premieres Friday, March 19, on Disney+.

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