Giancarlo Esposito joins “Captain America 4” in mysterious villain role

Doctor Doom? Norman Osbourne? Rick Jones? Your guess is as good as ours.

Giancarlo Esposito is joining the MCU.

Entertainment Weekly has learned that the Breaking Bad and Do the Right Thing actor has joined the cast of Captain America: Brave New World in an undisclosed villain role. THR first reported the news. The actor joins the sequel as it undergoes a 22 days of reshoots in Atlanta, which will add new action sequences to the project.

Esposito has played memorable villains in numerous high-profile projects in recent years, including Breaking Bad, The Mandalorian, The Boys, and Community. He’s also no stranger to superhero projects, though most of his prior comic book projects have been animated — he’s lent his voice to Harley Quinn, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, Son of Batman, and Batman: Assault on Arkham.

There’s no information on who Esposito will play in Brave New World, but the actor has long been a fan-favorite choice to play a number of key Marvel characters, including Magneto, Professor X, Galactus, and Doctor Doom.

Related: Anthony Mackie enters Brave New World in first look at next Captain America

Esposito teased a future Marvel project earlier this week at Phoenix Fan Fusion, saying, “The MCU has knocked on my door and it’s a role you won’t predict. It will be teased and there will be a series afterwards.” He’d previously discussed entering the MCU at CCXP in Mexico City on May 3, saying that he won’t be playing Charles Xavier, but that the role is “better than you can imagine” and that we’d hear news of the character “sooner than you’d think.”

The actor is in the midst of a busy 2024. He played a villain in the horror film Abigail, and also has a major role in Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis, which premiered at Cannes earlier this month. He’ll also appear in the horror threequel MaXXXine opposite Mia Goth and play a voice role in the Russo brothers’ The Electric State. On the television side, Esposito led the six-episode series Parish and appeared on Guy Ritchie’s The Gentlemen.

Captain America: Brave New World picks up where The Falcon and the Winter Soldier left off, with Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) keeping the mantle of Captain America after doubting his qualifications on the 2021 Disney+ series. The film, directed by Julius Onah, will also incorporate a number of supporting characters from 2008’s The Incredible Hulk, including Samuel Sterns (Tim Blake Nelson), Betty Ross (Liv Tyler), and Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross (Harrison Ford, taking over from the late William Hurt).

Related: Abigail and Scream team 'want to punch people in the face' with horror

After several delays, Captain America: Brave New World will soar into theaters on Feb. 14, 2025.

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly.