Captain America: Brave New World director Julius Onah has addressed why WWE Superstar Seth Rollins' role was ultimately cut from the new Marvel movie.
While exact details around Rollins' part are unknown, he would have seemingly played a member of the Serpent Society, a snake-themed group of villains pulled straight from the pages of Captain America's comics.
As Onah tells ComicBook.com, even before Rollins' part was left on the cutting room floor there was some work that needed to be done to ensure the larger-than-life personas of the Serpent Society fit into the grounded thriller of Brave New World.
"When you’re taking characters like Serpent Society from publishing, who, as you know, are individuals dressed up as snakes and have snake-adjacent powers, you’re always iterating and trying to figure out the version that totally works best in a movie like this," Onah said.
On Rollins, Onah added, "I love Seth, Seth’s incredible. But as we were evolving, we knew we had an additional photography period, just one that we did early on in the process that’s planned."
From there, a certain Giancarlo Esposito became available. Soon, his villain Sidewinder took centre stage and Rollins' character was the unfortunate casualty.
“We were trying to figure out, ‘Hey, who’s somebody that can bring a very specific kind of gravitas that works with this tone?’ And when Giancarlo became available, it was such a no-brainer," Onah said.
Rollins, real name Colby Lopez, previously appeared in Sharknado 4. His wife and fellow wrestler Becky Lynch has also had an MCU role cut, with Fightful reporting that she was originally set to appear in one of the Eternals post-credits scenes. Another WWE star, Randy Orton, previously revealed he once auditioned for the role of Cable in Deadpool 2, a part that eventually went to Josh Brolin.
Captain America: Brave New World, starring Anthony Mackie, Danny Ramirez, and Harrison Ford, is set to hit cinemas on February 14.
For more, check out the upcoming Marvel movies coming your way. Then relive the MCU's finest moments with the Marvel timeline.
