By Cassandra Pinkney

Composer Laura Karpman takes great pleasure in creating musical scores for the films of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, she says, because of Marvel Studios’ “massive love of music.” “The thing about the MCU is that it’s all of life. It’s every single emotion,” Karpman tells D23. “So, as a composer, working in the MCU gives you an opportunity to totally stretch out and do what we love to do.”

Perceptive fans also bring Karpman a distinct enjoyment while working on her MCU projects, which now include the feature films Captain America: Brave New World (2025) and The Marvels (2023) as well as the Disney+ series What If…? (2021–2024) and Ms. Marvel (2022). “A great thing about the Marvel fan base is that they pay attention,” says Karpman, an Oscar® nominee and five-time Emmy® Award winner. “They pay attention to what’s going on in the movie; they pay attention to themes. They’re engaged, and it’s so fun to engage with them and see how people react.”

For The Marvels, for example, Karpman engaged fans with music that incorporated sounds generated using “space junk” in order to create an authentic musical soundscape for a movie set in outer space. The score to Captain America: Brave New World has its own version of “space junk,” Karpman reveals, although from more down-to-earth objects. “There are actual wind-up toys in the score,” she explains. “There are these really crunchy sounds that create the sound of a ticking clock.” When combined with the other musical elements of the film, the buildup of these sounds makes for a high-strung listening experience, Karpman adds. “It’s this very, very tense music that keeps building and building and building.”

The same might be said of the story told by this newest entry into the MCU. In the first feature-length outing by Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) since taking up the mantle of Captain America, he finds himself racing to uncover the mastermind at the center of an international crisis—before temperamental President Thaddeus Ross (Harrison Ford) complicates matters any further.

That ever-building tension is a crucial part of the score and one of the reasons Karpman wanted to return to the MCU for this film. She classifies Captain America: Brave New World as a “political thriller,” a genre she had yet to score in the MCU before taking on this project. The film is reminiscent of classic political thrillers from the mid-20th century, she notes, and implicit references to those movies influenced the themes of many of the film’s characters. “You’ve got the conspiracy theme. You’ve got the Brave New World theme, which is the hero theme for this particular movie. You’ve got the [Dr. Samuel] Sterns [Tim Blake Nelson] theme, which is super creepy and taunting. And then you’ve got the President Ross theme, which starts out in this buttoned-up, sad world.”

In addition to the “taut, tight, and tense” nature of the film, the music also reflects what it means for Sam Wilson to take on the role of Captain America at this point, Karpman says. “The score is very contemporary. It uses a lot of synthesizers. It uses beats. It uses all the stuff that matches a contemporary Captain America. But it also has a classicism to it.”

Karpman has a fondness for Sam Wilson as Captain America and wanted to pay homage to this character’s roots in his first film appearance under this new mantle, the composer says. “Sam is from New Orleans and that’s the DNA of his musical story.” The heavy percussion heard throughout the film is a New Orleans drumline, a driving beat that moves the score forward and reminds audiences of the character’s history.

It’s a history that plays into an ever-evolving and often-surprising MCU. “The relationship between Sam and Joaquín [Danny Ramirez] is great and feels super fresh,” Karpman says. “You have great action and great characters doing great things. It’s certainly a wild ride!”

Marvel Studios’ Captain America: Brave New World is in theaters now.

By Zach Johnson

Steve Rogers was right—stars and stripes really do suit Sam Wilson.

At the end of Marvel Studios’ culminating blockbuster Avengers: Endgame, Steve chose Sam (Anthony Mackie) to succeed him as the next Captain America. As the Disney+ Original series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier later explored, carrying the shield—and the responsibility that comes with it—proved to be more complex than either envisioned.

Opening in theaters Friday, February 14, Captain America: Brave New World finds Sam having fully embraced his new identity. After he meets with U.S. President Thaddeus Ross (Disney Legend Harrison Ford), an international incident of epic proportions forces Sam to face an emerging threat that, if not contained, will soon have the whole world seeing red.

“When President Ross says, ‘You’re not Steve Rogers,’ Sam recognizes and understands that, because he doesn’t have the serum. He doesn’t have the backup and the facilities that Steve had,” Mackie says in the Spring 2025 issue of Disney twenty-three, available soon to D23 Gold Members. “When we first met Sam, he was a counselor. He was a soldier. He was a veteran. His brute force is his humanity, his mind, and his compassion—not his muscles.”

While Sam may not have Super Solider serum coursing through his veins, he does have a superpower: empathy. “Sam’s got so much heart. That makes him a great Cap, but he’s also very formidable,” director Julius Onah says. “I’m excited to take him on this journey in this paranoid thriller that is full of twists, turns, and surprises… It’s really emotionally satisfying.”

Luckily, Sam isn’t in this fight alone, thanks to U.S. Air Force intelligence officer Joaquin Torres (Danny Ramirez). As the new Falcon, he wants to spread his wings—literally and figuratively. “Anthony and I got to know each other in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, but in this film, we get to play at our pace,” Ramirez says of their characters’ brotherly dynamic. “What you see on-screen is what stems organically from our personal relationship.”

Ruth Bat-Seraph (Shira Haas), a former Black Widow and security advisor to President Ross, also joins Sam and Joaquin on their quest to discover who is manipulating world leaders. Wary of spoiling any plot points, Haas teases, “She is a big force on their journey.”

As for President Ross? According to Ford, he couldn’t have gotten into the character’s mindset without studying the “wonderful performance” that the late William Hurt gave across five Marvel Cinematic Universe films. “There are things that are happening to President Ross that were happening to him but hadn’t reached the point where they were transformative, if you will,” Ford explains. “The complications of his life—his relationships with people—were formed without the knowledge of what was committing him to the choices he was making.”

Also joining the fray is Seth Voelker/Sidewinder (Giancarlo Esposito), who leads a group of mercenaries called SERPENT. “He used to be a military man, like Sam, but he chose a different route in terms of how he decided to move through the world,” Onah says. “He became a mercenary, taking his expertise and using it as a soldier of fortune. Sam, meanwhile, uses his expertise for the benefit of other people—not the benefit of himself.”

After a 15-year hiatus, Tim Blake Nelson returns to the MCU as Samuel Sterns — albeit a different, somewhat altered version of the character he originated in The Incredible Hulk. “It’s so incredible to see him again, but in a very different way,” Haas says. “There’s a psychological aspect to this villain, because his power is in his brain. It’s exciting and scary.”

Mackie, meanwhile, can’t wait for audiences to see how his own character has evolved.

“I was never offended when people said Sam was a sidekick, or that Falcon was secondhand to Captain America, because that was only one facet of reality you got to see,” he tells Disney twenty-three in an exclusive interview. “You didn’t get to see Sam’s day-to-day life; you got to see how Sam was affected by Cap’s reality and how he was a part of the Avengers’ lives. It’s really cool and exciting to see a character like Sam grow and get his due. It’s rewarding and humbling—not so much for me, but for Sam Wilson. I’m excited for people to finally see him be the soldier and the patriot that he is outside of the Avengers.”