Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson nearly made an appearance in next week’s Spider-Man: Far From Home as the next Captain America.

In an interview with ComicBook, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige and creative executive Eric Carroll revealed that the major cameo was in the cards during the development process. The decision to not have Anthony Mackie appear as Captain America was due to Peter Parker’s character arc in the upcoming film.

“We briefly talked about bringing in Falcon as Captain America at the end, like maybe once Peter’s arced, and he’s sort of like leading the team, like maybe he calls in a favor,” Carroll explained. “But we also thought it was really important to the arc of this movie that there not be other Avengers available to Nick Fury or Peter, so he’d have to step up and do it himself.”

“Ultimately, Spider-Man: Far From Home is Spider-Man’s journey, whether any other heroes appear in it or not. “It’s all about Peter stepping up,” Feige added, “And Peter getting out of the shadow, not just of Tony but of the Avengers in general. Because by the way, he’s Spider-Man. He doesn’t need to be in the shadow of the Avengers. So other than Maria, and Nick, and Happy, and the emotional presence of Tony… You hear, he asks about Thor. He asks about Doctor Strange and Captain Marvel.”

Although it would have been a cool tease to have Sam Wilson’s Cap show up, it’s understandable the filmmakers wanted to focus on the main hero at hand. With that being said, said cameo was not the only surprise they had in mind during development. Interestingly enough, Director Jon Watts revealed that he didn’t actually remember discussing Captain America’s role but did go on to drop a neat nugget that connects to Thor.

“You go through so many iterations of this story and like so many brainstorm sessions that I don’t even remember that conversation,” Watts explained, adding another idea which had been tossed around, “I remember one point we were talking about if one of the stops along the way through Europe was going to be New Asgard.”

New Asgard was introduced during Endgame as Thor’s new home before leaving at the end of the film, crowning Valkyrie as the leader of the land. Even if these ideas never actually made it to pen and paper, it’s cool to know that they thought of everything when it comes to tying the latest Spidey film in a new era for the MCU.

After taking over the iconic mantle from an old and retired Steve Rogers in Avengers: Endgame, Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson is set to headline his own Disney Plus series titled the Falcon & The Winter Soldier. As you can tell by the name, it can be assumed that Wilson will start out as Falcon until he eventually adopts the Captain America name.

Spider-Man: Far From Home hits theaters on July 2.

SOURCE: ComicBook