Captain America in film

In 1944, Republic Pictures released a fifteen-part serial film starring Dick Purcell as Captain America.

[2] The serial deviates significantly from the comic book source material: the civilian identity of Captain America is district attorney Grant Gardner rather than U.S. Army private Steve Rogers, the character's superhuman enhancement origin story and Nazi villains are omitted, and the character uses a gun rather than his iconic shield.

[5] In 1979, two Captain America made-for-TV films starring Reb Brown as Steve Rogers aired on the American broadcast television station CBS.

[7] Set in the late 1970s, the film focuses on Rogers as he receives superhuman enhancement and becomes the costumed superhero Captain America, a moniker formerly used by his father during the Second World War.

[7] Its sequel, Captain America II: Death Too Soon, was directed by Iván Nagy and focuses on Rogers as he rescues a scientist who is forced by a terrorist (played by Christopher Lee) to create a formula that causes rapid aging.

[11] Production stalled due to financial troubles at Cannon; Golan left the company in 1989 and carried the rights for the character over to 21st Century Film Corporation, where he produced Captain America in 1990 with Albert Pyun as director.

[11] Marvel began developing a Captain America film in 1997, with Mark Gordon and Gary Levinsohn as producers and Larry Wilson and Leslie Bohem as scriptwriters.

[17] Joe Johnston was brought on to direct the film in 2008,[18] who hired Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely to rewrite the script.

[28] The plot of the film is broadly inspired by the Winter Soldier story arc in the Captain America comics written by Ed Brubaker, which sees Steve Rogers uncover a conspiracy involving his former partner Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan, reprising his role from The First Avenger), now a brainwashed assassin known as the Winter Soldier.

[36] With the announcement of Downey's casting, Marvel confirmed that the film would adapt the comic book series Civil War by Mark Millar and Steve McNiven, which sees Captain America and Iron Man lead competing factions who respectively oppose and support efforts to regulate the actions of superheroes.

[52] Winter Soldier and Civil War directors Anthony and Joseph Russo and screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely respectively directed and wrote the films, taking over from Avengers and Age of Ultron writer-director Joss Whedon.

[21] The films follow the Avengers as they attempt to thwart the plans of Thanos (Josh Brolin) to use the Infinity Stones to exterminate half of all life in the universe.