The Falcon and the Winter Soldier had introduced Young Avenger Eli Bradley in the form of Elijah Richardson, and some thought that he would have some presence in Captain America 4, seeing that Eli’s grandfather Isaiah was integral to the plot of the movie. Unfortunately, Eli doesn’t even get a cameo, and it had something to do with how crowded the movie already was.
Talking to ScreenRant, producer Nate Moore confirmed that Eli was originally in the early drafts of the movie, but they had to cut him because he had nothing much to do storywise. Moore says, “We started to feel like there were too many characters to track and we want to make sure if a character is in the film, they have something to do.”
In The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Eli only had a couple of scenes, but it was clear that he knew what his grandfather’s history was, and was even antagonistic to Sam when he starts trying to find out more about Isaiah Bradley.
Admittedly, they could have just added Eli for some smalls scenes with Isaiah and Sam training, but it does seem like the movie wants to push the relationship of both Captain Americas closer; plus not revealing Eli would also make Isaiah’s situation even more desperate, upping the stakes for Sam to save him.
For now, audiences are still trying to figure out where Captain America 4 is going to sit on the MCU rankings. Though critics were harsh, the weekend was met with a lot of positive buzz from fans. Hopefully it will reflect in the next weekend box office.
In the meantime, fans can catch short scenes of Eli in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier now streaming on Disney+. Captain America: Brave New World is now showing in theaters.
