CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR Directors Discuss Tone, Action Scenes & First Cut

The interviews with Joe & Anthony Russo aren't slowing down as the press tour for Captain America: Civil War continues! The directors sat down with Collider to discuss the making of the film, how they balanced the tone during their time in the editing room, how long their first cut was, and how they got help from Hollywood's best when crafting their action sequences.

In terms of the overall tone of the film, the directors have insisted they've managed to find the right balance between drama and comedy during the editing process, which they maintained throughout the making of the film. "It is about tone management. It's a very complicated film, there's some real intensity in the movie, a lot of emotionality, and there's also a lot of humour, and not every character is invested the same way in the story," explained Joe Russo. "Some characters have an intense investment, and there are characters who are not as invested and traditionally humourous like Scott Lang and Peter Parker. So it's really trying to stay true to what each character wanted and what their motivations were, and then in the edit rooom, working real hard to craft and make sure that we were shifting tones in a way that was supported by the music, or the title cards that we use in the film, our chapter headings, that kind of reset you to the next phase of the storytelling. It does progress from an intensity to a lighter section of the movie and back into intensity, so that was managed throughout the entire process very carefully."

As with most superhero films, there's always some elements left on the cutting room floor. Anthony Russo admitted they snipped a few things from their initial cut, but it didn't end up being all that much. "I think it was a little more than ten minutes more of what this current cut is, but here's the thing: these movies are incredible opportunities, you have incredible resources to execute the movie, and it's always been very important to Joe and I that everything we shoot, we want to know it's going in the movie, because it's too tragic to waste resources on these films, so we try to be very tight on a script level as we go into the production phase. Markus and McFeely are such great writers, they gave us a nice, tight script." When asked about Nick Fury and why he was absent from the film, the brothers remained coy. "You will find out soon!"

Collider quickly quizzed the brothers on Avengers: Infinity War and if the films were meant to be divided into two parts. "No, they're both distinct films, and that was very important to us and to Kevin [Feige]," said Joe. "It wasn't like 'the first movie is the setup for the second movie, just wait another year and you'll actually get the payoff.' They are absolutely distinct movies. We can't give anything away, but they're each their own complicated piece of storytelling." This definitely quells some fears that the films would end up like two-parters akin to The Hunger Games.

One little known fact about Civil War is that John Wick directors Chad Stahelski and David Leitch were actually second unit directors for the film, helping the Russos supervise the action sequences. "They did us a huge favour, they're friends of ours, and now they're off enjoying very successful directing careers, and just as friends we called them and asked if they'd come help us shoot some of the action sequences," said Joe. "We literally had an all-star team of directors working with us on this movie, because we care so much about the action, and the quality of the action, and we knew we had to work really hard to up our game from Winter Soldier, so we bring in the best people in the business to help us do that."

Captain America: Civil War releases May 6, 2016. Check out the full video below!