Giancarlo Esposito to join Captain America: Brave New World via reshoots

Giancarlo Esposito has been hinting for a while that he’d soon be making an entrance into the world of the Marvel Cinematic Universe—and now we may have an inkling as to why he kept saying that grand arrival would be coming “sooner than you think.” Turns out, it’s because he’s joining a movie that had already, as far as we knew, been at least partially shot, with news breaking tonight that Esposito has joined the cast of new Captain America movie Brave New World as it enters reshoots in the wake of last year’s strikes.

“Reshoots” is, of course, a frequently loaded term in the world of big-budget filmmaking; it’s very easy to see Marvel send one of its big-budget explosion machines back out into the world for more filming, and assume something has gone, if not disastrously wrong, than at least a bit off-kilter, with how it was testing. (Last year’s The Marvels, for instance, was reportedly subject to “massive” overhauls in its four-week reshoot process.) But most of the time, they’re a fairly normal part of the creative process, especially for a film like Brave New World, which reportedly had to rush a bit before the strikes shut down filming in 2023. (And then produced a whole lot of downtime for producers, and director Julius Onah, to contemplate what needed to be added or tweaked.) THR reports that the reshoots in this case amount to 22 days of filming, a few new action sequences, and a new character, played by Esposito, “in an undisclosed, but sources say, villainous role.”

Brave New World, Anthony Mackie’s first solo cinematic outing as Captain America, has been in the works for quite a while at this point; it was originally slated to come out this July, before being bumped back to a Valentine’s Day 2025 release date in the wake of the strikes. Kevin Feige has promised a more grounded MCU outing in this one, with “no aliens, no alien invasions, no time travel.” Meanwhile, we’ll have to wait and see which villainous (sources say) character Esposito will be playing, appearing in what we’re going to assume are scenes taking place around the margins of the movie, because you don’t cast Giancarlo Esposito in something and then not have him ominously watch things while making cryptic remarks, maybe doing that little thing where he steeples his fingers while he does it. (Sources say.)