Why was the Seth Rollins cut from Captain America: Brave New World? Director Julius Onah reveals why the WWE legend was replaced in the final cut.
The Serpent Society has been an omnipresent element in Captain America: Brave New World, despite most of their impact on the final film being scrapped. Set photos showing Seth Rollins and Rachel Leighton were some of the first to leak during production. It also seemed that almost every week that went by gave fans more information on their evolving (and diminishing) role, before some of the members were seemingly removed from the movie.
This removal was revealed through an interview with Seth Rollins, who revealed that his Serpent Society character was scrapped through a number of reshoots and rewrites. In a chat with ComicBook.com, Captain America: Brave New World director Onah revealed that Rollins was cut to better adapt the team to the film’s tone.
“You know, when you’re taking characters like Serpent Society from publishing, who, as you know, are individuals dressed up as snakes and have snake adjacent powers, you’re always iterating and trying to figure out the version that totally works best in a movie like this.”
“I love Seth [Rollins], Seth’s incredible. But as we were evolving and we knew we had an additional photography period, just one that we did early on in the process that’s planned. We were trying to figure out, ‘Hey, who’s somebody that can bring a very specific kind of gravitas that works with this tone.’”
How Sidewinder Replaced The Serpent Society
The idea of the director swapping out, not just a character, but an actor after they had already shot scenes is almost unheard of. Though it seems Julius Onah’s attempt to bolster the gravitas of Captain America: Brave New World paid off, with Giancarlo Esposito taking on the role of Sidewinder to replace Seth Rollins. And it seems that the decision was partially made to fulfill the dreams of fans.
“And when Giancarlo became available, it was such a no brainer. I have a very particular history with him. He’s iconic for working with Spike Lee. I interned with Spike Lee when I was 19 years old.”
“And of course, fans have been fan-casting him for a long time in the MCU. So it’s really about making sure that all the elements worked in the grounded tone and vision that I have for this film. And as we evolved and iterated, Giancarlo just made sense. And what a blessing to have in this film.”
The one upside of this situation is that, given how big of a name Giancarlo Esposito is, it’s possible he’ll return in a future project after Captain America: Brave New World to properly form the Serpent Society. If this happens, there’s a chance that Seth Rollins gets the chance to reprise his cut role on the silver screen.
Captain America: Brave New World is currently slated to hit theaters on February 14, 2025. Stay tuned for the latest news regarding the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel for more content!
