Surprising Facts And Trivia About The MCU Even Die-Hard Fans Don't Know

The MCU won a major coup by landing Sir Anthony Hopkins to portray Odin, the All-Father. Combined with the Shakespearean directing of Kenneth Branagh, Hopkins turned in a memorable and commanding performance as Thor’s father, and at least some of that performance was improvised. Branagh allowed Hopkins to improvise much of the emotional banishment scene in Thor, and Hopkins performance left his co-stars stunned. In particular, Tom Hiddleston, who was the recipient of an impromptu snarl, was rendered speechless.

After the massive success of Iron Man in 2008 set the Marvel Cinematic Universe off and running, Marvel Studios decided to follow it up with a sequel and two standalone films. The events of Iron Man 2, The Incredible Hulk, and Thor overlap little on the surface, but according to Marvel canon, these stories all take place within the same week. This incredibly busy week for SHIELD provided the basis of an Avengers prelude comic entitled Fury’s Big Week. With real-life news stories growing more outrageous by the day, it doesn't sound far-fetched to assume Earth 616 routinely deals with multiple catastrophes each week.

Few superhero actors better embody their character than Chris Evans does Captain America. From his looks to his voice to his earnestness, Evans has forever become the face of the Star-Spangled Avenger—a role he initially avoided. Evans turned down the opportunity to play Cap not once, not twice, but three times before finally being convinced to take the part. Evans feared being brought down by the multi-picture contract that came with the job, but he eventually came to relish his role as the good Captain, as did his legion of fans. Furthermore, Evans worried about the sheer scope of the film, saying that, “I remember telling a buddy of mine, ‘If the movie bombs, I’m f*cked. If the movie hits, I’m f*cked.”

A few individuals, like Chris Evans, have played multiple superheroes over their acting careers, but only one man can claim to have played his own grandson within a cinematic universe. That man is Kenneth Choi. Choi first appeared in the MCU for Captain America: The First Avenger where he portrayed Jim Morita, a member of Cap’s Howling Commando allies. A few years later, Choi appeared as Peter Parker’s Principal Morita, the grandson of Jim. Principal Morita keeps a picture of his grandfather behind his desk as a memento and a nod to fans.

Throughout the entirety of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, fans witness Steve Rogers adjusting to a world that aged without him. To help himself acclimate, Cap keeps a running list of things he needs to catch up on, like Nirvana, Star Wars, and the Troubleman soundtrack. However, that’s just the list that North American audiences got to see. The list appears differently in other markets, thereby making the references more relevant for fans all over the world. In the UK, Cap needs to check out Sean Connery and the 1966 World Cup Final, while in Russia he’s tasked with reviewing Yuri Gargarin and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and so on and so forth. Talk about a committed soldier.

Chadwick Boseman, an American actor, developed a Wakandan accent for his role as the Black Panther, an accent that sounds rich, intimidating, and believable. It probably helps that he’s not making the language up completely from scratch. Other fictional universes, like that of Avatar, created entire languages for their characters to speak. Instead of going down such a tedious route, Marvel Studios decided to use the real-world language of Xhosa as a stand-in for the fictional Wakandan dialect. Xhosa is an official language of South Africa, the homeland of John Kani, the actor portraying T’Chaka, though it is not widely spoken there.