Anthony Mackie as Falcon in “Captain America: Civil War”; Mavel Studios/Disney(NEW YORK) — Marvel’s latest superhero blockbuster Captain America: Civil War is the first movie in 2016 to cross the $1 billion mark globally. The film achieved the milestone on Friday, according to The Hollywood Reporter and is the fourth title in the Marvel movie universe to surpass $1 billion after The Avengers $1.51 billion, Age of Ultron $1.41 billion and Iron Man 3 $1.22 billion.
Anthony Mackie already portrayed Sam Wilson/Falcon in two of the Marvel flicks and realizes that there is superhero saturation in the marketplace. But he’s happy to be on a winning team.
“I think right now, the market is inundated with superhero movies,” he tells ABC Radio. “I think, fortunate for me being in the Marvel universe, all of the Marvel movies are good movies, so I don’t think you can have too much of a good thing and I think it’s a yin and a yang. The bad superhero movies make the [good] superhero movies that much better…And I think that’s why Cap 3 is doing so well because it’s such a great movie.”
Looking to the future, Mackie swears he doesn’t know any definite plans — particularly about the forthcoming Black Panther or his role, if any, in it.
“I don’t know. Marvel is very secretive about who’s in and who’s not in these movies,” he says. “My brother Chad Boseman introduced Black Panther in Cap 3 and did a great job. I’ve known from the beginning that once that character was being released, they would not be able to tame his success and I’m excited to see the movie and I think Marvel is going to do something remarkable with it.”
With buzz that Academy Award winner Lupita Nyong’o is “in talks” to jump aboard, and rising actor Michael B. Jordan will be rejoining his Creed director Ryan Coogler in the 2017 movie, some are speculating Black Panther could be the biggest and blackest superhero to date.
New Orleans native Mackie, who recently starred as civil rights icon Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in HBO’s acclaimed All the Way, says it ain’t so — and is cautious of using that terminology.
“Well, it definitely won’t be blacker than Coming to America because that’s the blackest movie of all time,” he quipped. “I think we should look at it for being just a really good movie instead of being a ‘really black movie.’ Don’t limit ourselves.”
Black Panther will be released by Disney, the parent company of ABC News.
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