Eagle-eyed viewers of the recent Captain America: The Winter Soldier trailers will have noticed that Steve Rogers is sporting a new suit, a conscious choice by co-directors the Russo brothers, designed to reflect Cap's new situation…
"It was about a real world grounding approach to the character," says Joe Russo, "in the spirit of Ed Brubaker’s book, which is postmodern and deconstructionist and a grounded thriller. "
"We wanted to put Cap in a space where he’s a special forces operative for S.H.I.E.L.D. who goes on missions around the world that are clandestine and sometimes require a certain level of anonymity or stealth."
“We wanted to use his Super Soldier outfit from the comic books as a way to represent, thematically, his place in the world of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the difference between working for S.H.I.E.L.D. and being Captain America. That’s something that gets explored on a very concrete level in terms of what outfits are used in the film.”
Russo also goes on to explain that the new film is based on more recent versions of the comics, as opposed to the classic books that informed the first outing.
"If you’ve been reading the books until the current runs, then this is a journey that the character goes on and it’s a pretty explicit journey," he says. "We just felt like we were being faithful to the more recent issues of the books."
Captain America: The Winter Soldier will open in the UK on 28 March 2014.
