The Falcon and the Winter Soldier is currently tracking to be more anticipated than The Mandalorian according to some recent findings. TV Time is a movie and entertainment tracking platform that dove into the numbers. They discover that the viewer anticipation is hovering over 200% of what it was for the Star Wars show at a similar point from release. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier also leads the same anticipation rate for WandaVision in the same time period by 43%. TV Time goes even further to note that Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan’s show has been in the Top 3 of their anticipated new shows since last April. Their calculations also mention that the Super Bowl spot for The Falcon and the Winter Soldier led to a 10% increase in audience growth off the strength of that short peek alone.
However, those viewers expecting the series to hand the shield to Mackie’s character off the rip might be disappointed. In a recent conversation with James Corden, the Falcon actor explained that nothing is set in stone.
“The thing is, if you watch [Endgame], at the end of the movie Sam Wilson never accepts the shield. He actually tells Cap that the shield is for him and it doesn’t feel right on his arm,” Mackie explained. “If you look at, like, you know—Marvel is great at building characters over the course of many films. And from Winter Soldier to now, my whole goal in the Marvel Universe was to help Cap, was to be Cap’s friend. So, at no point in time in Endgame did Sam Wilson accept the shield at all. As a matter of fact, it made him happy to come back from time and stand once again at Cap’s side.”
Then Mackie tossed out this barb, “I’mma ask you this question, and I’mma be very sincere, okay? I might get in trouble, I’m definitely gonna get a call about this: Every Marvel movie, there’s been photos leaked of a character or an event by paparazzi before the show or movie came out, right. So if we’re shooting in Atlanta, Prague, wide open areas, and I’m Captain America—not one paparazzi was there to take a picture of me?”