The climax of Avengers: Endgame seemingly saw Captain America ride off into the sunset, passing on the iconic shield to Sam Wilson after traveling back in time to live out the life he always wanted with Peggy Carter. With Chris Evans’ contract with Marvel Studios also coming to an end following the biggest movie of all time, it seemed as though the actor was officially done with the Marvel Cinematic Universe for good.
However, in the realm of comic book movies, returns for departed characters can never truly be ruled out. It just so happens that the first Disney Plus show set in the MCU is The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, with one of the main plot threads said to be the government’s resistance to Sam Wilson taking on the mantle of Captain America. This has led to speculation that Evans’ Old Cap was set to make a cameo in the series, possibly to bookend the six-episode run or perhaps turn up for a scene or two to publicly endorse his successor.
In a recent interview to promote Rian Johnson’s upcoming Knives Out, Evans was asked flat-out if he would be returning to the MCU in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and while he didn’t exactly seem keen on the prospect of going back to the well so soon after Endgame, he didn’t completely rule out the idea, either.
“Probably not. There were a million ways that tenure with Marvel could have gone wrong and it didn’t, so to stick the landing so well, it would be shame to kind of revisit unless there was something unique that we felt the need to reveal. For now, it just feels like ‘Let’s be content with how well it ended’.”
While Evans would no doubt take an awful lot of convincing to play Steve Rogers again, even if it was only for a cameo role under heavy old-age makeup, he did admit that he would consider it if there was a valid, story-driven reason for him to appear. With the shadow of Captain America set to loom over the entirety of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier regardless, the character will likely be a presence in the show’s story in much the same way Tony Stark heavily factored into Spider-Man: Far From Home, despite being dead.