Exclusive: Falcon and the Winter Soldier showrunner teases "make or break" moment for Sam Wilson

Falcon and the Winter Soldier is getting ready to take flight. The new Marvel Phase 4 show will put the spotlight on Captain America sidekicks, giving Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes a chance to truly shine. 

With actors Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan having spent so many years with the characters already – Stan has played Bucky for close to a decade now – incoming showrunner Malcolm Spellman worked with the pair both closely to shape scenes and dialogue. That led to hours of phone calls and helped shape the series.

"These guys have already written entire mythologies and backstories with emotional and psychological dimensions to these characters that they show up with," Spellman tells GamesRadar+'s sister publication SFX Magazine. "And now, with six hours, we get to bring it to life. Sebastian is excellent at wearing all that trauma on his sleeve in moments of silence, as Bucky's gone from one war to the next. And there's a huge, huge moment for Sam’s character, where it’s basically make or break for him," Spellman teases.

"I was on the phone with Anthony for hours going through this moment, line by line, in the most positive collaboration. When it's like that, there's nothing better, because the MCU at that moment becomes as real as our world. Because Anthony knows what this character is going to do in that world. And the truth of it that we're creating: you feel it. He crushed it!"

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Falcon and the Winter Soldier will also see some other familiar faces from the MCU return, including Daniel Brühl's Baron Helmut Zemo and Emily VanCamp's Sharon Carter. New images were recently released, teasing more of what's to come.

You can check out the full interview with the team behind Falcon and the Winter Soldier in the current issue of SFX Magazine, which features the Marvel show on the cover. The show will stream weekly on Disney Plus from March 19. For more from SFX, make sure to sign up to the newsletter, sending all the latest exclusives straight to your inbox.