Giancarlo Esposito Joins Captain America 4 Amid Reshoots
Considering the back-and-forth over the past few years, this was almost certainly going to happen eventually, but I don’t think anyone expected it to happen this way. Murphy’s Multiverse was the first to break the news that Giancarlo Esposito will appear in Captain America: Brave New World, the upcoming Marvel film starring Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson; the story was later confirmed by The Hollywood Reporter. Esposito’s role is unknown right now, but he will apparently be playing a villain, who is described by Murphy’s Multiverse as “an antagonistic agent of chaos.” Esposito has been acting for a long time, from small parts in the early 80s to his big break on Homicide: Life on the Street. But he’s best known as Gus Fring, the coolly intelligent drug lord/fried chicken chain owner on Breaking Bad. Since then, he’s been on The Boys and The Mandalorian.
I’m not going to argue against Giancarlo Esposito playing a villain because he’s great at it, but he’s great at a lot of things, and it’s kind of a shame that he’s been pigeonholed since his fantastic stint on Breaking Bad, where he was Walter White’s best nemesis. I’m glad he’s not playing Charles Xavier, as had been rumored for a while, but I wouldn’t have been opposed to seeing him as a good guy for a change. On the other hand, Marvel needs a good villain or two, and casting an actor as talented as Giancarlo Esposito is a good start. What’s more interesting about this news is that it’s part of a story about Brave New World beginning almost a month of reshoots; whether these are part of the previously announced reshoots – which were long enough to re-film the entire movie – or the start of another round of filming, which would indicate even more trouble for the production. The movie already has the Leader as the central antagonist; why would you cast someone like Giancarlo Esposito as a secondary villain? My guess is that he’s either being set up here for another film down the line (maybe the replacement for Kang), or he’s taking over as the main bad guy, which would mean the entire plot was thrown out the window. I think the former is more likely, although I wouldn’t put it past the people who wasted the great Walton Goggins to do the same to another phenomenal actor.
