Chris Evans and his girlfriend, Alba Baptista, were spotted holding hands just hours after news broke that the pair have been dating “for over a year.”
In pictures exclusively obtained by Page Six, the Marvel star, 41, and Portuguese actress, 25, tried to stay under the radar while going on a stroll through Central Park Thursday.
The incognito couple held on tightly to one another as they made their way through the crowded streets while wearing matching sunglasses and face masks.
Both actors kept things casual with Evans rocking grey sweatpants, a black shirt and a black hat, while Baptista opted for bright red leggings and a beige turtleneck sweater.
The “Captain America” star and his new leading lady seemed to notice the paparazzi at one point because they quickly bowed their heads and let go of one another on their way out of the park.
Despite their shyness around the cameras, a source told People, “They are in love and Chris has never been happier. His family and friends all adore her.”
Nonetheless, Evans has had a hard time keeping his feelings off social media because he left a flirty comment on the actress’s Instagram post Wednesday.
While promoting her upcoming Portuguese film, “A Dream In Paris,” the “Gray Man” actor commented a clapping hands emoji and melting face emoji — racking up more than 2,900 “likes” in her comments section.
While Evans may be the “Sexiest Man Alive,” Baptista has an equally impressive list of accomplishments.
The “Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris” star speaks five languages and has done “an extensive amount of humanitarian work” at an orphanage in Cambodia.
Despite their 16-year age difference, Evans thinks his age serves as an advantage when it comes to dating.
“You spend a lot of time learning what’s been helpful and what hasn’t been,” he told People ahead of their latest issue.
Evans is reportedly “happier” than he has ever been.
Getty Images,
Evans is reportedly “happier” than he has ever been.
Instagram/alba.baptista
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“We all have patterns, hang-ups or baggage that repeat and echo, so I’ve really been able to kind of identify where I need improvement and what works,” he continued, adding that knowing when to say “I’m sorry” is crucial to maintain healthy relationships.
On Friday, The Hollywood Reporter speculated whether Evans’ Steve Rogers or Mackie’s Sam Wilson would don the American hero’s vibranium-enforced shield in the upcoming “Captain America 4” installment.
Evans took to Twitter on Saturday to clear the air for moviegoers hoping to see him return in the upcoming film.
“Sam Wilson is Captain America,” he said, replying to THR’s tweet, confirming Mackie’s role in the movie and simultaneously confirming he will not resurrect his 8-year stint as the titular character.
Sam Wilson is Captain America
— Chris Evans (@ChrisEvans) July 9, 2022
After the happenings of last year’s Disney+ series, “Falcon and the Winter Soldier,” Mackie’s Wilson character finally took the helm as the next Captain America after starring as Falcon for years.
Evans first appeared as Captain America in “Captain America: The First Avenger” in 2011, the fifth film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Malcolm Spellman, the creator and head writer of Winter Soldier, is currently developing the script with Dalan Musson, a staff writer from the show.
Although the film’s cast is still in the works, Nigerian-American filmmaker Julius Onah (“The Cloverfield Paradox”) is slated to direct “Captain America 4.”
No release date has been announced for the film yet.
Last month while promoting his new film “Lightyear,” Evans told Yahoo News that Mackie is exactly the right man for the Captain America role.
Chris Evans talks life post-Marvel (“I’ve shed like 15 pounds… Every time people see me, they’re like, ‘Are you okay?’”) and Anthony Mackie taking over as Captain America (“No one better to do it. He does it justice”). pic.twitter.com/5w1tx3HS4h
— Kevin Polowy (@djkevlar) June 10, 2022
“There’s no one better to do it. I mean, he honestly does it justice,” Evans told the outlet at the time. “I’m so proud of him. I can’t wait to see what they do in the future with it. But if there’s any tear shed [about the role], it’s just for the sweet memories I had.”
After Thor: Ragnarok, fans obviously expected Thor: Love and Thunder to be wild. Just off-the-walls bonkers nonsense from the man who does that better than anyone: writer-director Taika Waititi. Now, the first trailer is here, and it delivers on that promise and more. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is, indeed, bringing the thunder. And we love it.
Thor: Love and Thunder opens July 8 in theaters only. It brings back Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Tessa Thompson as Valkyrie, and Natalie Portman as Jane Foster, as well as all of the Guardians of the Galaxy, Oscar winners Christian Bale and Russell Crowe, and a whole lot more. Many of which you see right here in this incredible trailer.
When last we saw the God of Thunder, he’d left New Asgard in the capable hands of Valkyrie, and set off back into the cosmos with the Guardians of the Galaxy at the end of Avengers: Endgame. As you can see this movie picks up from there and goes into places we’d never expect. Well, except for that whole Jane Foster becoming the Mighty Thor thing—that was revealed waaaay back at San Diego Comic-Con 2019 when Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige laid out the plan for Phase 4. At that time, Thor: Love and Thunder was one of the last entries. Now it’s finally coming and it will, from what we can tell, certainly be setting things up for the future.
Oh, and isn’t it wild that Thor: Love and Thunder is the first fourth Marvel Studios character movie? The Avengers got four movies but Iron Man and Captain America only got three. Does that make Thor the current crown jewel of the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Or is it just that Marvel couldn’t say no to another Waititi movie when he basically has his choice of projects, including Star Wars? Probably a bit of both. In the meantime, check out a new poster for the movie too.
Image: Marvel Studios
Tell us what you think of the trailer below. Love and Thunder opens July 8.
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Spanish Captain America comicPhoto: PAU BARRENA/AFP via Getty Images
From Al Jaffe to Jerry Siegel and Joel Schuster, there’s no shortage of comics artists, creators, and writers getting screwed by publishers. Pretty much as soon as the likes of Marvel and D.C. realized that they could cheat creators out of money, they began doing so. And according to a new report by The Guardian, the big two are still playing the hits, preventing creators like Ed Brubaker and Jim Starlin from reaping the benefits of introducing the world to the likes of The Winter Soldier and Thanos through ridiculous contract agreements and pitiful bonuses.
In a recent newsletter, Brubaker, who was already not feeling great about a Winter Soldier TV show, lamented about being so closely related to the world of the Winter Soldier while being left out of the part that puts food on the table: the money. “For the most part, all [co-creator Steve Epting] and I have got for creating the Winter Soldier and his storyline is a ‘thanks’ here or there, and over the years that’s become harder and harder to live with,” Brubaker wrote.
“I have a great life as a writer and much of it is because of Cap and the Winter Soldier bringing so many readers to my other work. But I also can’t deny feeling a bit sick to my stomach sometimes when my inbox fills up with people wanting comments on the show.”
The Guardian goes on to explain that “according to multiple sources, when a writer or artist’s work features prominently in a Marvel film, the company’s practice is to send the creator an invitation to the premiere and a cheque for $5,000.” This is one option. Several sources said that they could also receive nothing or a rare “special character contract,” which allows creators to claim payment when their characters or storylines are used. One anonymous Marvel creator said, “I’ve been offered a [special character contract] that was really, really terrible, but it was that or nothing […] And then instead of honouring it, they send a thank you note and are like, ‘Here’s some money we don’t owe you!’ and it’s five grand. And you’re like, ‘The movie made a billion dollars.’”
Sometimes, even actions that should amount to polite business dealings, such as invitations to premieres, slip through the cracks. The Guardian reports that Brubaker and Epting showed up for the Captain America: The Winter Soldier, a film very much indebted to their Captain America run, premiere party in tuxes, only to find out they weren’t on the list. Sebastian Stan, who plays the character they created, had to get them in.
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The Guardian explains how these contracts work:
Comic creators are “work-for-hire”, so the companies they work for owe them nothing beyond a flat fee and royalty payments. But Marvel and DC also incentivise popular creators to stay on with the promise of steady work and what they call “equity”: a tiny share of the profits, should a character they create or a storyline they write become fodder for films, shows or merch. For some creators, work they did decades ago is providing vital income now as films bring their comics to a bigger audience; they reason – and the companies seem to agree – it’s only fair to pay them more. DC has a boilerplate internal contract, which the Guardian has seen, which guarantees payments to creators when their characters are used. Marvel’s contracts are similar, according to two sources with knowledge of them, but harder to find; some Marvel creators did not know they existed.
The whole report is very much worth reading as it breaks down the fraught history between the people who create comic book characters and the companies that profit off those creations. Read the whole article at The Guardian.
Natasha Romanoff, on the hunt for Mephisto. Maybe. Image: Marvel Studios
Marvel gets a lot of credit—perhaps too much credit—for the idea that its cinematic universe is meticulously laid out years in advance, a grand plan that we and it alike are pulled along with as if by inevitability more so than the planning power of a studio worth billions of dollars. But given the last 18 months and counting that the world has had, surely some of that planning has been put askew? Only a tiny bit, apparently, according to Kevin Feige.
Speaking to On The Red Carpet for the premiere of Black Widow—a film that was originally meant to kick off Marvel’s “Phase 4” plans before the pandemic saw it delayedmultipletimes—Feige discussed Marvel Studio’s general reaction to the impact covid-19 has had on its rollout. Beyond Black Widow, films like The Eternals and Shang-Chi have been pushed back along with the rest of Disney’s calendar for the next year or two, but the company has managed to leverage the arrival of its Disney+ shows—WandaVision, Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and the currently ongoing Loki, all of which Widow was meant to release ahead of—to fill the gap between its movie releases.
But that’s relatively minor shuffling, all things considered. It’s only really Widow’s delayed release that’s largely changed what we knew to expect out of Marvel’s post-Endgame catalogue so far, and according to Feige, all that’s largely impacted is the early reveal of one connection between the movie and the Disney+ shows. “There’s also an Easter egg that originally was going to appear first in Black Widow, and then show up in Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and because of the pandemic—it’s the only thing within our Phase 4 that was twisted a little bit,” Feige explained. “So for fans that watched Falcon and the Winter Soldier, there’s something waiting for them as an Easter egg in this film.”
That Easter egg had already been reported by Vanity Fair to have been the arrival of Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ Valentina Allegra de Fontaine. She’s a character from the comics with links to a whole Rolodex’s worth of the publisher’s spy-fi secret organizations—from SHIELD to Hydra (she was, for a time, the owner of the Madame Hydra mantle), to perhaps most likely connected to Black Widow itself, the former Soviet spy cell Leviathan (which previously appeared in Agent Carter). Given that de Fontaine’s plans are still relatively nebulous to us as an audience, outside of the fact that we know she’s teamed up with Wyatt Russell’s John Walker, aka the U.S. Agent, in the present, meeting her in Falcon before Widow likely doesn’t have all that much of an impact. Perhaps the fact that Feige claims it’s the only major reshuffle in the studio’s plans for Phase 4 makes it all the more impressive.
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Anthony Mackie and Emily VanCamp in The Falcon And The Winter SoldierPhoto: Chuck Zlotnick/Marvel Studios
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Good storytelling involves using tropes, and one trope I always appreciate in action movies is you can always tell when a plan is going to work. Plans fail when you see characters discuss them beforehand, but they come through when you’re just thrown into the scene.
The best part of “Power Broker,” the third episode of The Falcon And The Winter Soldier, is when that trope is deliciously skewered. Bucky describes to Sam a “hypothetical” about how they could break Zemo out of his maximum security prison, right before Zemo walks out the door. It’s too bad the prison breakout plot is one of the most boring I’ve seen—Avatar: The Last Airbender’s “Boulder” episode was more interesting. But then, I guess that’s not what this episode’s about.
What is this episode about, exactly? On its face, “Power Broker” seems to be about gathering intel on the super-soldier serum and the Flag-Smashers, and even expanding Sam and Bucky’s universe of associates. But it seems most interested in playing into action movie tropes more than anything else, and you know what? It fails. The whole episode, I was just thinking of the times I’ve seen better versions of each of these scenes.
The scene in the club makes me think of the far better casino scene in Black Panther. Heck, even those scenes in Tenet where the main character’s pretending to be someone else have a better handle on the particular balance of irony and suspense. Perhaps it’s the strange direction, where it’s hard to tell where people are in a scene at any time. Or maybe it’s the editing—the way the snake cocktail scene was cut together made me feel like they were trying to get a laugh out of the audience, but the joke fell flat for me. Maybe because I like snakes, or perhaps because a snake gut cocktail doesn’t even seem cool, just gross? Now, if they were using venom, that would be hard-core in a funny way. What might actually undermine the whole enterprise is the fact that we get very little context or humor for the character Sam is supposed to play, or even how exactly Zemo is so well connected to Madripoor. After he breaks out of prison, he’s conveniently very rich because he was royalty in Sokovia.
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Zemo always seemed like he was presented as a cipher, a boon in Captain America: Civil War, but beyond that, his characterization felt somewhat rote and boring to me. (Zemo? More like ZERO, am I right?) It’s not necessarily the fault of Daniel Brühl, but I have to say that my image of him in the MCU has always been clouded by Inglorious Basterds. He played that Nazi hero creep a little too well, which I think speaks to his acting skills. But I guess I also have to give credit to Quentin Tarantino for how he directed Brühl in those scenes, because I get the sense that he was given a lot less for his character in this episode.
Zemo’s most interesting scenes are also in the beginning, because of how he alternately aligns with Sam and Bucky. As someone who was obsessed with breaking up the Avengers using their own flaws against them, you see small parts of that emotional intelligence pop out in this episode. Bucky watches him fearfully yet seems drawn to Zemo’s power over him. (Wow, he really is the MCU character that needs the most therapy.) Meanwhile, when Bucky and Sam bicker over how Bucky’s been holding on to Steve’s notebook, Zemo wins over Sam when he says the “Trouble Man” soundtrack says much about the African American experience. Sam, shocked, says, “He’s out of line, but he’s right.” Once again, I am aligned with Sam and his thought process. How dare Bucky say he “just likes ’40s music.” Open yourself up, man! I guess he is pretty different from Steve—he can go on dates (and dating apps apparently set to “both men and women”) but he can’t enjoy the music of the modern era? Come on, man. Also, as I’m sure we can all agree (and please do chime in in the comments), when share some of your favorite media with someone, you need to offer a lot more than “I liked it.” Sam suffers with us, my friends.
But okay, does Zemo have Black friends? He also dismisses Sam’s frustration with his disguise, saying, “Only an American would think a well-dressed Black man looks like a pimp.” I…WHAT? Does Zemo listen to Solange? Unfortunately, that aspect of his personality falls to the wayside as [sigh] they try to make a deal with Selby, a British woman who has the intel they need. I’m sorry, this scene just read as “James Bond references without the verve and humor” to me. After Selby is murdered, Sharon’s reintroduction to our characters even feels like a failure of writing. In fact, this whole episode has some strange characterization.
I feel like that’s the biggest problem with “Power Broker.” Even little moments, like Walker yelling to the café owner in Germany “Do you know who I am?” while Karli kills several people with a car bomb with a real blasé attitude, feel extremely out of sync with last week’s episode.
Finally, the worst aspect of the episode is how it leaves the best part of the show in the lurch. Sam and Bucky barely speak to each other or check in with their plans. Sam does ask Bucky several times if he’s okay, but Bucky does not seem to even know how to reply. And when Bucky asks him, Sam tells him he is overwhelmed by the people that have been caught in the crossfire—Sharon and Isaiah, especially. And while he does take back his decision to give up the shield, he feels more that he should’ve destroyed it.
Stray observations
I’m pretty sure, thanks to Sam’s call with Sarah, that this and the past two episodes all pass the Blackdel test, the Black version of the Bechdel test. (They also just pass the “DuVernay test.”)
Even the club scene is disappointing. They leave the next day acting like they partied hard, but Sam and Bucky just stood around awkwardly! Zemo does a little dance, but I just do not see why they couldn’t go all out and gift us with the MCU equivalent of this scene from Parks And Recreation.
The scene with Nagel reminded me of this scene from The Man from UNCLE, except, of course, the latter was better. Nagel seemed to be channeling Jesse Eisenberg’s Lex Luthor from Batman V. Superman: Dawn Of Justice.
I did love Sharon’s fight scenes—her use of knife throwing in gunfights mirrors Steve at his best. Bucky was also in fine form when returning as the Winter Soldier.
I half-expected Zemo to leave them in the lurch. I really expected him to be putting Sam on with that snake cocktail, or even have poisoned the food he so kindly serves Sam and Bucky. WHO is this guy?
When they hang out with Sharon in her amazing apartment (I believe?), Bucky says, “She’s kind of awful now,” lying to himself because he knows he won’t ever be this cool in his life, not even if he’s alive for another 100 years.
Sam’s awkward phone call also just falls flat as a device for humor? Suspense? I was more trying to puzzle out why he brought his phone at all, much less why he couldn’t put it on Airplane Mode.
I wonder if Sharon killed Selby. I figure she’s not working for the Power Broker, but I’m curious where her loyalties lie now.
Bucky Barnes, just after rolling through some German fields with his best friend Sam Wilson.Screenshot: Marvel Studios
For years, the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s textual approach to LGBTQ+ characters has been heavy on speculation and light on actual representation. Fans have spent years and years shipping Avengers with other Avengers in romantic crossovers to rival Endgame, while the studio has either asked them to wait, or offered them a Russo brother in trying times. So far, it seems like The Falcon and The Winter Soldier’s taking the former approach—although it could end up giving fans the latter.
The first two episodes of the new Disney+ series have been a lot of setting up, but one thing that’s been clear throughout is that the series wants to sell the chemistry of Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan’s titular heroes as not just teammates, but goofy, occasionally homoerotically-charged buddy cop pals.
As Gavia Baker-Whitelaw notes over at The Daily Dot, episode two, in particular, emphasizes the shipping vibe between the two heroes for laughs and attempts at gravitas. Sam and Bucky rolling together in the fields just outside of Munich after their scrap with the Flag Smashers is played as a quick gag, as is Doctor Raynor’s impromptu (and intimate) therapy technique between the two afterward, albeit one that opens up a level of reflection for Bucky unlike anything else in his treatment in the show so far.
But there’s more to The Falcon and The Winter Soldier’s queer theory vibes than a few gags—especially when it comes to Bucky Barnes. Marvel fans have long considered the potential for Bucky to be seen as a queer character, casting him as a sort of lovers-to-enemies-to-lovers foil for Steve Rogers ever since Stan debuted in Captain America: The First Avenger. Even as Avengers: Endgame took Steve Rogers’ personal arc down a path away from Bucky, the theory has lingered, only to heat up again with the arrival of the new show. In the first episode of the Disney+ series, Bucky goes on a cut-short date with a waitress from a local sushi place, only to comment that his foray into the world of modern online dating apps lead “to lot of weird pictures,” only to add “I mean, tiger photos?”
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Fans longing for a queer version of the character immediately latched on to the line, positioning it as a reference to the mid-2010s phenomenon of a primarily masculine trend of dating profile pictures, especially on Tinder, of men posing with big cats in an attempt to attract potential matches. If Bucky was seeing lots of pictures of people posing for tiger selfies, these folks reasoned, then it was very likely that Bucky Barnes had swiped right on more than a few men, seemingly, but quietly hinting at the character’s bisexuality. The chatter grew enough that, speaking to NME last week, lead writer Malcolm Spellman addressed the rumors.
“I’m not diving down rabbit holes,” Spellman said. “But just keep watching…”
So, will The Falcon and The Winter Soldier reveal one of its lead characters to be a queer man? We don’t know yet, and creatives like Spellman certainly aren’t telling. But it’s not really surprising to anyone at this point that Marvel creatives would dance around rather than confirm a smattering of queer representation in their work for the studio. After all, this has been part and parcel of the push-and-pull in asking for visible LGBTQ+ representation in Marvel’s work for over a decade at this point. Time and time again, actors have played vague about the potential for queer romantic partnerships, only for executives to tell fans that one day, textual representation will come.
For the most part, they’re still waiting. Avengers: Endgame made waves for the first on-screen LGBTQ character in a Marvel Cinematic Universe movie for all the wrong reasons, when the pre-hyped moment of queer representation was ultimately revealed as a seconds-long cameo by co-director Joe Russo. Since then, as Marvel laid out “Phase 4” of its moviemaking plans and beyond, the game has once again been one of patience on fans’ behalves. Tessa Thompson’s Valkyrie was confirmed to be queer at San Diego Comic-Con 2019, but audiences will have to wait until 2022 to potentially see that acknowledgment on-screen in Thor: Love and Thunder. Eternals, Marvel’s cosmic-tinged team-up of obscure Jack Kirby comics characters, is still on track to release later this year, and will feature Bryan Tyree Henry’s superheroic Phastos as a married queer man, sharing the franchise’s first on-screen queer kiss with his husband, played by Haaz Sleiman.
Those are all still promises of things to come for queer Marvel fans looking to see people like themselves in the stories they love. The Falcon and The Winter Soldier may yet join them, or, like many opportunities before it, become part of Marvel’s long history of queerbaiting audiences. I guess, as is the Marvel manner, we’ll just have to wait and see.
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