Anthony Mackie Says Marvel Is a ‘Space of Controlled Entertainment’: ‘There’s Only So Much Creativity You Can Bring to the Table’ Because of Comic Book Ties

variety.com:

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Anthony Mackie has been a stalwart of the Marvel Cinematic Universe ever since debuting as Sam Wilson/Falcon in 2014’s “Captain America: The Winter Soldier.” The actor’s MCU tenure has included “Avengers” movies and the Disney+ series “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier,” and now Mackie is taking on the mantle of Captain America in the upcoming film tentpole “Captain America: Brave New World.” While promoting his latest series “Twisted Metal” in the United Kingdom, Mackie compared the project to his experience making Marvel movies and told Radio Times there was a lot more storytelling freedom to be had outside of the MCU. “I would say the Marvel thing is completely different, just because it’s such a space of controlled entertainment.

Like, there’s only so much you can do,” Mackie observed. “There’s only so much creativity you can bring to the table, because Stan Lee gave us so much content.

Whereas with this [‘Twisted Metal’], it was like, ‘There’s a guy and a girl… go!’ So we were really able to build the world around it.” Mackie agreed that a project like “Twisted Metal” has the freedom to introduce and kill off character at will, which is not something the Marvel Cinematic Universe can entertain so easily. “Exactly.

And that’s the hard thing about the Marvel universe. It’s like, you can’t really go outside of the lines of those comic books,” the actor said. “You know, when we introduced the Falcon, and the growth of the Falcon to Captain America, all of that had to coincide with what Stan had already gave us.