“The Falcon and Winter Soldier” Is Like a Six-Hour Marvel Movie, Says Star Anthony Mackie

Anthony Mackie says “The Falcon and Winter Soldier” will be more like one big Marvel movie. Armed with a budget north of 150 million, he may just be right.

As we get closer to the release of the upcoming Disney+ series, The Falcon and Winter Soldier star Anthony Mackie fills us in on just how truly cinematic this series is going to be.

The mini-series will cost somewhere north of $150 million, competing with the likes of Game of Thrones and Stranger Things (but still nowhere near some of the Marvel Cinematic Universe‘s most expensive films, like Avengers: Infinity War & Avengers: Endgame with budgets surpassing 300 million). Upcoming shows WandaVision and Loki, which will be releasing within the year, are part the new line of Marvel series produced specifically for Disney+. Anthony Mackie spoke with Variety about The Falcon and Winter Soldier and how ambitious it all really was.

 “Everybody who had worked on TV before was like, ‘I’ve never worked on a TV show like this.’ The way in which we were shooting, it feels exactly like we were shooting the movie cut up into the show. So instead of a two-hour movie, a six- or eight-hour movie.”

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Also, fans of the hand-to-hand combat in Captain America: The Winter Solider will likely be getting more of that gritty fighting style in the six-episode miniseries. Mackie spoke about the fight scenes and how the shutdown in March due to coronavirus affected shooting.

“So they shut us down two weeks before the U.S. shutdown…And so the stunt stuff — everything is just on another level. Every show, every movie, they just push it — they push the envelope so much. So hopefully, knock on wood, we’ll be going back soon.”

The Falcon and Winter Soldier will pick up where Sam Wilson and James “Bucky” Barnes left off in Avengers: Endgame. We watched Steve Rogers pass the shield onto Sam at the end of the film, indicating that Sam Wilson (Mackie) will take up the mantle of Captain America at some point down the road.

Returning MCU actors Daniel Bruhl (Helmut Zemo) and Emily Van Camp (Sharon Carter/Agent 13) are accompanied by Wyatt Russel and Cle Bennet (rumored to be playing Battlestar). The supporting cast includes Desmond Chiam, Miki Ishikawa, Noah Mills, and Carl Lumbly. Kari Skogland (Handmaid’s Tale) directs the six-episode series, with Malcolm Spellman (Empire) serving as showrunner.