Case Study

1. INSTITUTIONS AND
AUDIENCES
CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL
WAR

2. PRODUCTION
• Captain America: Civil War, disagreement over international
oversight of the Avengers fractures them into opposing
factions—one led by Steve Rogers and the other by Tony Stark.
• Borrows concepts from the 2006 comic book storyline "Civil
War", while also focusing on story and character elements from
the previous Captain America films to conclude the trilogy.
Following positive reactions to test screenings of The Winter
Soldier, the Russo brothers were brought back to direct in early
2014.
• Ensemble cast, includes Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr.,
Scarlett Johansson, Sebastian Stan, Anthony Mackie, Don
Cheadle, Jeremy Renner, Chadwick Boseman, Paul Bettany,
Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Rudd, Emily VanCamp, Tom Holland,

3. • Marvel Cinematic Universe owned by Walt Disney Pictures released this
action adventure movie on May 6, 2016, keeping in my mind approaching
summer and its target audience of children and millennials.
• Rated: PG-13 (for extended sequences of violence, action and mayhem)
• Directed By: Anthony Russo, Joe Russo. Previously directors of the Winter
Soldier and producers of a popular sitcoms: Community and Arrested
Development.
• Produced by Kevin Fiege.
• Filmed in Atlanta.
• Written By: Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely.
• Captain America: Civil War was the highest grossing movie of 2016, earing
$1.153 billion dollars worldwide according to Business Insider. (Had a budget
of $250 million), 12th highest grossing movie in history at that time.
• Had the 5th biggest opening weekend in history.

4. • Civil War also beat the other big superhero versus superhero
movie of 2016, Batman v Superman ($166 million according to
Box Office Mojo), by about $15 million in domestic opening
weekend ticket sales.
• For comparison, "Captain America: The First Avenger" got 66
on Metacritic and The Winter Soldier got a score of 70. "First
Avenger" also scored 80 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, with
"Winter Soldier" ranking in at 89 percent.
• Most critics have released rave reviews, with only some on the
fence who are saying the latest Marvel film gets to be too much
for viewers as it adds characters to the seemingly never-ending
Marvel Universe.
• It was critically acclaimed by the reviewing website Rotten
Tomatoes, receiving a 90% approval rating based on 354
reviews.

5. • According to atlantic.com, Captain America: Civil War is Marvel at its best. Stuffed to
overflowing with superheroes, the studio’s latest nonetheless understands that
character is key.
• A critic on Rotten Tomatoes says: the fact that a Marvel movie dares to question the
big, shiny spectacle that is its bread and butter — and acknowledge that untold
thousands die in the name of entertainment — seems rather novel.
• One of the critics of Telegraph noted that though it deploys much of the same
computer-generated whizz-bang, is startlingly heavy with heartbreak. At the root of
that is Civil War’s greatest strength – and the reason it makes all thought of the
recent Batman v Superman debacle evaporate on contact.
• Dave White of the Wrap writes: “Civil War” strikes that admirable balance: serious-
minded action that never forgets to indulge in serious fun.

6. • The original plan for the third installment in the Captain America series was different than what was
executed.
• Marvel: Phase 3 was to commence with Captain America: Serpent Society.
• The plan was scrapped when DCEU, owned by another media giant, Time Warner announced that they
would be adapting Batman v Superman as their next comic book movie.
• Disney feeling threatened, wanted to counter/compete with their own hero vs hero movie, decided to
adapt the Civil War arc from the comics.
• Had to convince Robert Downey Jr. to reprise his role as Tony Stark, as the movie was not in his contract.
• Interestingly, Zack Snyder’s BvS did not succeed critically receiving a 27% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

8. • Prior to the release of Iron Man (2008), Marvel comics used to lend
rights to movie studios such as X Men to Fox Studios and Spiderman
to Sony Entertainment.
• With the continuing success of the MCU, Disney wanted to strike a
deal with Sony in order to get creative rights over Spiderman back.
• They were able to reach a compromise. Creative rights would go with
Marvel, Sony will earn money from the stand alone Spiderman movie,
toys’ money will go to Disney.
• This way Marvel now gets access to one of the comic book company’s
most popular characters and was able to include a Spiderman cameo
in the movie.

9. • Award Nominations: People’s Choice, Saturn, Empire, Critic’s Choice
Awards.
• At Saturn Awards: Best Performance by a Younger Actor won by Tom
Holland.
• At People’s Choice: Robert Downey Jr Best Actor in an Action Movie
• At Teen Choice: Chris Evans and Captain America Civil War
• Fans were trying to even pitch Robert Downey Jr. for an Oscar for his
performance.
• The film was the first to use IMAX's digital 2D cameras (for the film's
central airport fight sequence).
• Nearly 20 visual effects studios worked on Captain America: Civil War
including Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), Lola VFX, Image Engine,
Trixter, Cinesite, and The Third Floor amongst others

10. • Lola VFX had to manipulate the Stark scene, which depicts a hologram
of a memory in which the superhero magnate appears with his since-
deceased parents.
• The VFX techniques that were used to create a youthful Tony Stark
are now being routinely used to give actors what amounts to digital
face-lifts.
• Shot in one day, the scene utilized doubles — one stand-in for the
adult Stark, and one young performer depicting 20-something Stark.
• Downey had to play both parts. He had to mimic the movements of
his stand-ins, repeating their performances. He completed the older
Stark part first, then went to his trailer, shaved off his trademark
superhero mustache and goatee, and played his younger self.

13. MARKETING
• More than 100 worldwide partners have created their own Civil War product
tie-ins, offering more than $200 million in global promotion for the film.
• Coca-Cola, Google, Samsung, Wrigley and Harley-Davidson are joining
previously announced partnerships with Audi, Synchrony Financial, Pizza
Hut, Kellogg's, Pop Secret, Mouser Electronics and Vivo.
• Started off their promotion with cast members Chris Evans and Robert
Downey Jr made an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel and debuted the first
trailer and a poster for the movie on 24th November, 2015.
• 58 million views.
• The timing of the trailer was a little questionable since it was expected to
debut closer to – or even with – the new Star Wars movie. But that became
such a target for other big trailer releases it was speculated that it purposely
avoided that slot so as to not get lumped in with a bunch of other new
trailers.

16. • Second Trailer released on March 10, 2016.
• 76 million views.

17. • When you open the official website you get a recreation of the key art
featuring Tony and Steve engaged in a staring contest. But
that’s…about it. You can watch the second trailer, buy tickets or view
a handful of pictures in the “Photo Gallery” but nothing else. There’s
no section here for promotional partners or anything else that’s
usually found on these sites. But there’s a reason for that, or at least
kind of a reason.
• At the top of the site is the navigation menu for Marvel.com, which
hosts this page. There you can dig into “Characters,” “Comics” and
more that take you into the entirety of the Marvel Universe, not just
the specifics of this movie.
• So the studio/publisher is counting you already being largely familiar
with the characters they want you to watch and want you to either
find out more about their comics origins or explore other multimedia
extensions.

18. • Arguably the most notable partnership was the slick Audi commercial that
featured footage of the chase scene between Winter Soldier, Black Panther,
and Captain America, directed by the Russo brothers themselves.
• The TV ad campaign kicked off with a Super Bowl commercial that features
almost no dialogue but just has a bunch of scenes showing the conflict
between Team Cap and Team Iron Man over chants of “Divided we fall’’.
• Lots more TV spots would roll out over the course of the campaign, with
many of them introducing small little tidbits of new information about the
movie and the character.
• There were plenty of cross-promotional partners, most notably National
Academy of Sciences, with whom Marvel/Disney launched a program
designed to get submissions on world-changing tech and other ideas from
girls, who could send in their pitches, five of which would be picked for a
big presentation, with the final “winning” girl getting an internship at
Marvel Studios

22. • Marvel Comics specifically issued a comic book arc called Civil War II
around the time of the movie’s release in order to hype it up for
comic book readers but also to promote Marvel Comics.

23. • Food was also a big factor, with brands like Pop Secret, Skittles,
Kellogg's, Pringles, and Keebler all offering the promo tie-ins. Pizza
Hut allowed fans to choose their side with collectible pizza boxes
featuring either Team Captain America or Team Iron Man.

24. • One of the most interesting
pieces of this interactive
campaign was the Twitter roll-
out. Not only did the campaign
on Twitter directly engage fans
to choose which side they were
on with the hashtag #TeamCap
or #TeamIronMan, it went one
step further and had the Civil
War cast respond to fans with
personalized video messages
depending on their choice.
• It was a brilliant move on the
publicity front. The best thing
Marvel's PR and marketing has
going for it is the cast members
themselves - they're all great on
the publicity tours, comfortable
with one another and in front of
the camera, and have endeared
themselves to fans as much as
the characters they play.

25. • At this point, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been around for 8
years, and many fans have grown up with it. They feel they're a part
of it, that they've helped shape it, build it. These are "their"
characters, "their" actors and actresses, and for a brand that's as
sprawling and vast as the Marvel Studios brand, they've managed to
do a great job of making it feel as intimate and "we're all in this
together" for fans as possible.
• For the marketing campaign to build upon this interactivity, making
fans as feel as much a part of the battle as possible, is the next
evolution in the studio-fan relationship that Marvel has so carefully
cultivated over the years.
• There is a particular ownership from a fanbase that has quite a bit of
goodwill toward the Marvel brand, and a great deal of that credit
goes to the way Marvel Studios' marketing has been so interactive
from the start.
• And because of that, Captain America: Civil War is poised to be the
next Marvel film that wins audiences over across the world.

26. • http://collider.com/captain-america-civil-war-cast-twitter/
• Twitter and Tumblr Q&As.

31. • Marvel latched onto “#FriendsDay,” a holiday
totally made-up by Facebook to celebrate it’s 12th
anniversary, by creating a video along the lines of
those being shared by others that showed some of
Cap’s friends and their adventures. The video ends
with a picture of Steve and Tony that is then torn in
half to show the fracture in their friendship. It’s a
good execution.
• http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-
vision/captain-america-celebrates-facebooks-
friendsday-862336
• The stars also all were slated to appear on two
episodes of “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” with Team Cap
on one night and Team Iron Man on another.
Around the same time a big cover story in
Entertainment Weekly popped that had a big
photo gallery, interviews with the cast and lots
more.

33. • Magazine Covers featuring main cast.

35. DISTRIBUTION
• Initial release on April 12th, 2016 in Dolby Theatre.
• Worldwide release on May 6th, 2016, to avoid piracy.
• Distributed by Walt Disney Motion Pictures.
• Captain America: Civil War was released on digital download by Walt
Disney Studios Home Entertainment on September 2, 2016, and on Blu-ray,
Blu-ray 3D and DVD on September 13, 2016.
• The digital and Blu-ray releases include behind-the-scenes featurettes,
audio commentary, deleted scenes, a blooper reel, and an exclusive
preview of Doctor Strange. The digital release comes with an exclusive
"mockumentary" short film, Team Thor, directed by Thor: Ragnarok
director Taika Waititi, which was originally screened at San Diego Comic
Con 2016 and showed what Thor was doing during the events of Civil War.
• The movie hit Netflix on December 25th, 2016.