Warning: This story contains a big spoiler for Captain America: Civil War. If you haven’t had a chance to see it yet, I’m so sorry! You should step away from the internet, in general, until you have had a chance to watch.
Going into Captain America: Civil War, it seemed like Spider-Man (Tom Holland) was going to be the big surprise during the ultimate showdown between Avengers. The previews showed Spidey in the large airport battle, but left out the big surprise that came from the side of Team Cap. Captain America himself (Chris Evans) didn’t know that his newest team member, Scott Lang (Paul Rudd), could make not only make himself tiny, but could turn himself into a giant. This gave everybody the first sight of Giant-Man in the MCU.
Giant-Man rips the wing off an airplane
USA Today shared that this development came as they realized some surprises would be necessary in order for the fight sequence to result in a win for Team Cap.
“We played with a number of different ideas in terms of what it would be, but none of them had the potency of that Giant-Man beat there,” says Anthony Russo.
The move also assured Lang’s place as a super-hero, having significant value while fighting alongside people that he has admired. The chance that Lang took to become Giant-Man was real, but he thought that it was worth it.
“He’s just really impressed with Captain America, he just wants to deliver and he figures out a way to deliver where he might actually tear himself in half but he’s willing to do it and it works,” Anthony Russo says. “It just lined up on a lot of different levels.”
Lang breaking in half would have definitely ruined the fight, but luckily, he was able to grow into the 50-foot tall fighter with success.
According to Joe Russo, most of the airport scene was filmed on a green screen at an Atlanta backlot, but to create Giant-Man, they used a combination of Rudd’s action on set with a motion-capture performer who would move around slowly as a giant would, stomping on things and tearing a wing off an airplane, and then they mapped it onto a 50-foot-tall man in post-production.
Anthony Russo calls that whole battle “the sequence that almost ate the movie. I would say at least 40% of our entire post time was on that sequence, just because it was so complicated.”
The change into Giant-Man was more than just a way to have Cap win the battle. It moved Lang’s story forward, essentially continuing his origin story. In fact, not all of the characters in the big airport battle were there for the same reason.
“It’s important that everybody have a story pushing them through that fight,” Anthony Russo says. “They needed emotional motivation to fight or else their fight has less stakes and is not as fun to watch.”
With such care taken to make sure that every fight had a plot-driven purpose, Captain America: Civil War ended up being a very enjoyable watch. We know that there are more plot developments for Scott Lang ahead, when he returns to the big screen in Ant-Man And The Wasp July 6, 2018. In the meantime, what did you think of Giant-Man’s appearance in Civil War?
Source: USA Today
