What 'Captain America: Brave New World' Can Teach Screenwriters

There will be spoilers for Captain America: Brave New World.

Captain America: Brave New World is the latest installment of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the fourth film in the Captain America franchise, though it’s only the first to star Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson in the lead role of Captain America. It took close to a dozen films and a television show to prep Sam for taking on the role and really convincing him he was able to do it. It helped that Chris Evans, the actor who played Steve Rogers—the Captain America in previous installments—had retired from the role.

The film delivers the sort of geopolitical intrigue and spycraft that the best installment of the Captain America line—Winter Soldier—handled so well and tries to modernize it into something that will speak more clearly to a contemporary audience.

The film follows Captain America and his sidekick, a brand new Falcon, as they navigate a tense political situation. The new president, General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross (played in previous Marvel installments by the late William Hurt, but Harrison Ford has picked up the torch here), is determined to create a lasting peace with the world to share equitably a supply of admantium, a new element found on Celestial Island in the middle of the Indian Ocean (which itself appeared, spinning out of the events of Chloe Zhao’s The Eternals). 

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There’s more to the situation than meets the eye. A mysterious puppet master is pulling everyone’s strings and after an assassination attempt against the president’s life, it seems as though the United States and Japan are on the brink of war. Captain America must race to clear the name of the assassin, who happens to be his mentor Isaiah Bradley, a black World War II veteran who was given the super soldier serum and experimented on by the government after being held in prison against his will for 30 years. He also has to keep the president from his game of brinksmanship with Japan and uncover the mysterious entity starting the war and trying to ruin the president’s legacy.

Brave New World never quite soars to the heights of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, but it does offer some interesting lessons for screenwriters to look out for as they're honing their craft.

As I watched the film, one of the things I was really pleased by was how much it didn’t try to mirror our reality. The film was obviously written in the wake of the first Trump administration and during the Biden administration. The screenwriters could not have predicted the outcome of the 2024 election or the extremely tumultuous political situation that a second Trump regime would place the country in. And it doesn’t really address any of that because none of that is reflective in the film. 

The screenplay sought to create its own politics and identity that built on the logic of the world inside the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a world where Thanos blipped half of the voters for years and the Avengers brought them back. A world that has to deal with superhuman threats and the heroes that repel them with regularity, with alien invasions, with islands mysteriously rising up from the ground. 

Of course, all of these things offer symbolism and metaphor that we as an audience are expected to chew on and apply to our real lives—every story is designed to do such a thing—and Brave New World is wise to do it without pointing a finger at any of the real world politics plaguing America’s leadership right now in order to get that point across. It’s interested in much bigger issues than that, issues that run deeper into the foundations of the United States, and lays bare the cracks in its founding principles.

For writers, trying to predict the future can be difficult and can date things in a way that will make the movie disposable. The year 2001 must have seemed impossibly far away in 1968, but looking back on 2001: A Space Odyssey from almost 25 years past that, it gives the film a different dimension, seeing what the view of the future might have been from a time before man had even walked on the moon. It’s shaded differently. 

By committing to your own alternate timeline, with the considerations of your world’s own internal politics, you make your script a bit more timeless. Even though Wag the Dog (1997) or Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) still dealt with realities that were possible and in some ways prescient, they were invented for the films themselves and retain that timeless quality. 

I think Brave New World is going to feel timeless and prescient at the same time as years go by for this decision. It’s the same reason George Lucas’s Star Wars prequels feel more and more relevant as days go on. In 1999, people scoffed at the idea that the taxation of trade routes in outlying star systems would ever be of importance to a modern audience but now it’s a hot topic item and makes The Phantom Menace and George Lucas’s screenwriting look pretty damn prescient.

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The screenplay, credited to Rob Edwards and Malcolm Spellman & Dalan Musson and Julius Onah & Peter Glanz, is much more focused on the issues of how the government treats those that really serve it faithfully. It tackles racism and what it means to be a symbol. It speaks to the ideas of diversity, equity, and inclusion without actually saying those things by name, which was actually one of the most powerful moments in the screenplay. 

Sam Wilson has to contend with the fact that as a Black Captain America, he cannot screw up. He has to be perfect in a way his white predecessor never had to deal with because he is an example to so many more, he has a much larger magnifying glass on him, he has that much more scrutiny on him. It’s not fair, but it is the way it is. Like Steve Rogers before him, he’s going to keep taking those punches and keep standing up and fighting for what he thinks is right, to be that example and show people there’s a better way. Because he’s finally able to be comfortable as that example. That’s why the inclusion of Isaiah Bradley’s character was so important to the screenplay. Here’s a man who had been abused by the system of the United States and willingly comes to the White House and is abused by it once more, creating stakes both personal and professional for Sam to solve by the end of the script.

Everything ties to these ideas and it makes the film work on this idea.

Another thing to watch out for is how the ending of the climax is seeded throughout the film. At first, it feels like it could be a simple bit of character building, but it’s really showing you where the film is heading. President Ross is lamenting the relationship he had with his daughter, Betty Ross—a character who hasn’t appeared in the MCU since 2008’s The Incredible Hulk played by Liv Tyler. She’s never forgiven him for sending the army after Bruce Banner and wants nothing to do with him. He laments the fact that she can’t remember him as the man who used to hold her hand, walking through the trees while the cherries blossomed.

Later, before he’s ready to make an important speech, he reaches out to her and she actually answers the phone. He invites her to take one of those walks again to see the cherry blossoms and she agrees. This seems to put him at ease and he goes out to give a speech that sets off a chain of events that leads to him going into a Red Hulk rage.

As Sam Wilson’s fight against the Red Hulk, tearing apart the White House, is futile, he remembers he needs to calm the Hulk. Thinking back to that original conversation, he leads the raging monster to the cherry blossoms and tries to calm him down there. Though it’s not immediately successful, but it eventually works.

If it wasn’t set up earlier in the film, and even in earlier knowledge of how the Hulk personas work in previous films, then this payoff and solution really wouldn’t work. It would feel like a cheat that comes out of the blue and you never want to do that to your audience.

I think the biggest surprise for the film and another one of the strongest moments of screenwriting comes at the end. After Captain America has subdued Red Hulk and he’s been reverted back into the President, we’re treated to a scene in the Raft, a prison in the middle of nowhere. Ross is being kept there and he’s surprised to see Sam visiting him. It turns out he’s resigned from the office of president and taken full responsibility for the damage he’s caused. This has secured his legacy and saved the peace treaty he had fought to ensure—enforcing the character change he was trying to convince his daughter of. It’s a tender moment then, when Betty has accompanied Sam to visit her father.

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This moment completed two arcs, bringing them full circle. The personal arc for Ross is complete as his character accepts the consequences for his actions, but also the symbolic arc for Sam Wilson is complete. The system that had abused he and Isaiah Bradley is taking responsibility for its wrongdoing perpetrated against them as well, and they’re allowed to go free while the perpetrator willingly accepts its time behind bars. It’s a powerful moment and a story that feels refreshing in these dark times.

Even though there’s no one-to-one symbolism in the real world right now, seeing a leader do incredible wrong in the world and take responsibility for it and willingly go to prison for their actions was a breath of fresh air. It would be nice to see that kind of maturity and accountability in our government now.

Though Captain America: Brave New World is clearly a product of the Marvel milieu of which its a child, it does draw inspiration from places like The Manchurian Candidate and even some of the naiveté of Frank Capra’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. It’s worth a look. It’s not a masterpiece of Marvel cinema, but it is competently put together and is hell of a lot of fun.

Bryan Young is a filmmaker, writer, and teacher. He also hosts the Full of Sith Star Wars podcast. His latest short film, The Lost Boys, is currently on the festival circuit and has won numerous awards. His newest novel is BattleTech: VoidBreaker. You can learn more about him at his website.