Marvel Cuts Bucky From New 'Captain America' Project, Fans Disappointed

After making his debut alongside Chris Evans’ Steve Rogers in Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), Sebastian Stan’s James “Bucky” Barnes became a fan-favorite character of the MCU. But despite his lengthy Marvel history and popularity with audiences, Bucky is noticeably absent from the franchise’s latest Captain America-inspired project, which premiered earlier this summer.

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Over the years, Bucky has followed the Avengers into numerous battles, fought against Thanos, and even taken down a global terrorist organization with Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson (AKA Falcon) in the Disney+ The Falcon and the Winter Solider show. We first met Bucky in The First Avenger as he was preparing to be deployed overseas, where he was introduced as the best friend of Steve Rogers. After getting a dose of the super soldier serum, Steve and his troops rescued Bucky and his men from a WWII prison camp, though it wasn’t meant to last long.

Picking up decades after Steve has been pulled from the ice, Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) reveals that Bucky had survived his treacherous fall off of a train into an icy ravine and was captured by HYDRA agents. Injecting Bucky with the same super serum, HYDRA controlled his every move, essentially making him into a programmable killing machine.

Related: ‘Captain America’ Star Jumps Ship to Another Huge Franchise, Blasts Marvel for Confusing Role

After HYDRA is destroyed once and for all, Bucky starts to poke through again, thanks to Steve’s intervention, and gradually begins regaining control over his mind during an extended stay in Wakanda. He (reluctantly) gains the Avengers’ trust but is dusted by Thanos’ snap. However, he returns and joins the Earth’s Mightiest Heroes in the battle against The Mad Titan in Avengers: Endgame (2019). Sadly, Bucky has to say goodbye to the version of Steve he’d just rekindled a relationship with after Steve uses the Time Stone to relive his life with Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) by traveling back to the 1940s.

Now an old man, Cap passes off the shield to Sam Wilson, putting a rift between him and Bucky. While Bucky doesn’t necessarily disagree with Steve’s decision to give Sam his moniker, he does resent Sam for donating the weapon to a museum instead of keeping it for himself. The Falcon and the Winter Solider explores Sam and Bucky’s dynamic as they grieve the loss of their mutual friend, laying the groundwork for future Captain America installments while also setting up the 2024 Thunderbolts movie, where Bucky will lead a new superhero team.

With such a complex MCU history and profound connection to Captain America, you’d think Bucky would automatically feature in any sort of Steve Rogers-related project. But according to Disney’s newest Marvel project, that’s not exactly the case.

Rogers: The Musical opened at Disneyland California Adventure’s Hyperion Theater on June 30, telling the life story of Captain America in the form of a fictional Broadway musical, first seen in the Disney+ Hawkeye miniseries. The stage show takes Guests through all stages of Steve’s life, from the moment he’s injected with the serum to his long-awaited dance with Peggy Carter post-Endgame.

While the musical primarily focuses on Steve and Peggy’s romance, some were surprised by just how little Bucky’s role is in the new show, which is currently playing through the end of the month. In Rogers: The Musical, Bucky appears prior to Steve’s Super Soldier transformation, where the two friends share a quick moment. And, even though he’s referenced at other points throughout the show, he doesn’t return until the final musical number.

Although the lack of Bucky in Rogers: The Musical might’ve rubbed some people the wrong way, according to its conductor and composer, Christopher Lennertz, there’s a very good reason behind Bucky Barnes’ scaled-back role. 

Speaking with The Direct, Lennertz explained that Bucky was initially supposed to play a much larger part in the story. But given that Rogers: The Musical could only be 30 to 35 minutes, as Disney intended to offer the show four times a day, it was cut down due to time constraints. 

As a result, he and the team were forced “to make some choices we really didn’t want to make. Probably the biggest one being that we didn’t want so little of Bucky,” despite Bucky being “the other really big person in Cap’s life from the get-go:”

There was a much longer version of this show, and there is a much longer version of this show. Hopefully, you know, if anybody would ever let us do it, the longer version of this show had Bucky as a much bigger player in this. That’s the other really big person in Cap’s life from the get-go. I could absolutely see a Bucky and Cap song in there somewhere. But we just literally didn’t have the time.

Lennertz also acknowledged fan complaints over Peggy being given one of Bucky’s on-screen lines in Rogers: The Musical despite not saying it in MCU canon. He defended the decision, explaining that the swap “wasn’t a mistake” or an intentional jab towards fans, and was instead the result of the team wanting “to get the line in” and this being the best way to do so:

We know there are tons of fans who are upset because Peggy said a line that Bucky said. Obviously, we all knew that. It wasn’t a mistake. We all knew; we all knew. We all made the choice that for this 35-minute show we wanted to get the line in, and the way to get it in was to land on the Peggy storyline.

The composer also had some wishful thinking when pitching a future Rogers: The Musical adaptation, saying, “There could be a great Broadway version” which would allow Bucky Barnes to “say the lines he needs to say:” 

Absolutely there could be a great Broadway version of this show in which Bucky has a really big part and will say the lines he needs to say. So it’s interesting to think how that could work.

Ultimately, Peggy and Steve’s love story took precedence in Rogers: The Musical, and considering its short 30-minute runtime, it’s not surprising that there was simply too much to squeeze into the story. And Sebastian Stan’s MCU persona was far from the only MCU character axed from the stage show—Sam Wilson and even Iron Man are MIA for most of the musical aside from quick cameos.

For now, we can only wonder if audiences will ever see that longer version of the musical, which might even feature the Cap and Bucky duet that never made it off the cutting room floor. Either way, Guests can check out Rogers: The Musical at Disneyland’s Hyperion Theater now through August 31, 2023.

What do you think of Bucky’s role being shortened in Rogers: The Musical? Was this fair, or did Cap’s best friend deserve more time in the spotlight? Let us know in the comments below.