[spb_text_block pb_margin_bottom="no" pb_border_bottom="no" width="1/1" el_position="first last"] Captain America Civil War: How to Build the Superhero Movie - Part 1 By Jacob Krueger [/spb_text_block] [divider type="standard" text="Go to top" full_width="no" width="1/1" el_position="first last"] [spb_text_block title="Captain America Civil War: How to Build the Superhero Movie - Part 1" pb_margin_bottom="no" pb_border_bottom="no" width="1/1" el_position="first last"] This week we’ll be looking at Captain America: Civil War by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely.   It's interesting to talk about superhero movies because there’s been a big change in the way these movies are built. One of the things that we’re starting to see is that superhero movies, just like other big budget action movies, are actually being built more like TV Drama Series than they are like Feature Films.   Just like TV Dramas (and TV Comedies), rather than being built around a traditional character driven structure, these huge budget superhero and action movies are built around a concept called an engine.   In a TV Series, the engine is a kind of unique formula, developed by the writers, that guarantees that the series can run for a very long time, creating the same feeling in each episode in a slightly different way.   In these mega-budget franchises, the engine works similarly, allowing each “episode” to set up the next. A byproduct of this effect is that an individual action movie is no longer designed to create a cathartic effect that leaves the audience with a sense of completion. Rather, it is designed to leave the audience craving more, with untied strings in each installment setting up the next episode in the franchise, which will once again replicate the same engine in a different way.   As I’ve discussed in my TV Podcasts, this is exactly the way a TV drama series would be built. If you think of a series like Breaking Bad, for example, each episode is built around the same engine.   In each episode, we are going to watch the same kind of thing happen in a different way. In Breaking Bad, we’re going to watch Walter White grow just a little bit more corrupt. We’re going to watch Walter White manipulate his adoring former student Jamie into compromising his own morals. We’re going to watch Walter White get further estranged from his wife. We’re going to watch Walter White lie. We’re going to watch Walter White slowly move from the reluctant criminal to a man who has to recognize the fact that he loves crime.   And over each season we’re going to watch Walter and Jamie confronted with a different aspect of building a business, starting with being a start-up dealing with a low level crazy street thug antagonist, and moving up to deal with the cartel and ultimately to deal with corporate America as their business grows to a different level in each season.   So the idea is, once you have an engine, you know what the audience is coming for. And all you have to do to generate ideas is to figure out how to reshuffle the same cards, so that the engine can be replicated in each installment.   And this is exactly what we see in Captain America: Civil War. A very simple engine, based on very simple formula that The Avengers actually came up with quite a while ago. A formula they came up with for a really good reason.   You see, writing superhero movies is really frickin’ hard. It’s nearly impossible. And the reason it’s nearly impossible to write a good superhero movie is that superheroes are, well, super. They are pretty much all powerful. And most of them, not all of them, but most of them, are pretty much all good.   So you’ve got good people with indestructible powers doing indestructible things. In the beginning of the Ironman franchise they figured out pretty quickly if you want to write Iron Man, you’ve got to get him out of his suit.