‘Captain America: Civil War’: Russo Brothers Explain Their Spider-Man Variant

The Captain America: Civil War movie is coming out this year, with Anthony and Joe Russo directing and they explain their version or variant of Spider-Man in the upcoming Marvel movie in an interview with ComicBook at the 2016 Wizard World New Orleans convention. The first thing asked was if the web slinger would even appear in future trailers or Marvel merchandising. Anthony answered the question.

“No. We really can’t comment on that.”

Joe Russo chimed in as well.

“Part of making these movies is maintaining surprise so that everybody’s excited and that’s one we’re going to make fans surprised.”

The good news is that they gave their explanation of Tom Holland’s Spider-Man. If fans recall, there were already Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield versions of the iconic character. Now in Captain America: Civil War, Holland’s portrayal comes to light via the directors. Apparently, there had been some childhood nostalgic attachment to the Spider-Man character when the Russo brothers were children.

THE RUSSOS explain how their SPIDER-MAN is different In CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR https://t.co/pd8HmgcyL6 pic.twitter.com/UXE0QaE28p

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Joe held the webslinger in high regard, and as a kid, always had him on his mind. Their excitement for the character lived vicariously through the Marvel comic book pages. Apparently, great value was held to Peter Parker by the Russo brothers.

“He was my favorite character growing up, so the opportunity to bring Spider-Man to the screen is a dream come true.”

In Captain America: Civil War,the focus will be on Peter Parker in high school. That according to the directors, they felt a need to place emphasis on taking on the hardships of his powers and abilities. Something, according to Joe, that makes him different from other super heroes in the world of Marvel.

“For us, it was extremely important that we cast somebody very close to the age of a high school student.”

Of course, there was a short amount of time where Tobey Maguire’s Parker was attempting to catch the eye of Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst) in high school and his altercation with Flash Thompson, played by Joe Manganiello. Not much else happened after those highlights, so there’s no telling what kind of high school trials and tribulations the Holland character will get himself into.

In the third Captain America movie, the directors mentioned they wanted a more genuine authenticity to the youthful energy of the character. From what they say, it looks like they want to place upon the character in the movie what he’s dealing with in his life as an insecure teenager. This is something more confident superheroes don’t really deal with.

The Russo brothers also wanted, as they put it, a “contemporary” character as played by Holland and in contrast mentioned that in the Sam Raimi version, Parker’s place of residence with Aunt May was more of an expensive home. They asked themselves questions regarding what kind of living conditions would this character by portrayed in Captain America: Civil War.

“A character growing up with his aunt in New York, a single income family… Where would they live? What would that look like? Where could they afford to live? We asked ourselves all those questions.”

Regarding the “tonal” presentation by introducing the character, Anthony added how the Winter Soldier was introduced into Captain America: The Winter Soldier. The moving on from being frozen in time to the modern world. One could say Steve Rogers did the same thing when he woke up from his slumber.

It looks like outside of the previous Spider-Man movies, the Russo brothers wanted to introduce the character into the “tonal universe” of the existence between the Civil War and Winter Soldier movies.

“It’s a very specific tonal world. It’s a little more grounded and a little more hard-core contemporary. That was also coloring our choices a lot about the character on Spider-Man.”

Joe talked about how he has a closet filled with comics and wanted to convey how he and his brother’s childhood psychological ties could somehow be reflected upon fans and what had drawn them to the character. It was even explained about this with Captain America on how Joe found things that disturbed him about the character. So there’s an emphasis on how they interpreted the roles, but without “denigrating” them.

The @Russo_Brothers Reveal The Start Of @CaptainAmerica: #CivilWar https://t.co/k2E0kDyxpK pic.twitter.com/eAcSuOWN40

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“That’s what we try to bring out in the characters now. There are certain things. We talked about Cap. There are things that bothered me as a kid about him. We tried to correct those things in our interpretation of the character.”

In Captain America: Civil War, in comparison to previously made Spider-Man movies, the latter stayed true to the comics, but what the Russo brothers are attempting to do is make the character more natural and real.

“The harder we can pull these characters into reality, the better for us, especially because we’re all so connected now through social media, the internet.”

To get the “naturalism” of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, fans can enjoy Captain America: Civil War on May 6.

[Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images Entertainment]