While Marvel has managed to negotiate its way around the Covid pandemic without too much damage, they have had to make a few release changes. One of those changes was releasing WandaVision ahead of The Falcon and The Winter Soldier in their Disney+ lineup. Fans were happy to finally see the return of Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan as the titular duo in what became the second MCU series added to Disney+ in 2021. With the series ending at the same time, it was announced that Anthony Mackie would be leading a fourth Captain America movie, fans wondered whether Stan’s Bucky Barnes would also be back. It seems that Stan has been wondering the same thing himself, and he still doesn’t know the answer.
Sebastian Stan has a busy slate of non-Marvel projects releasing soon, as part of the new action thriller The 355 and as one of the leads in Disney+/Hulu series Pam & Tommy. During a conversation with ComicBook.com that he was asked about his Marvel future. If he does know anything, and that is very much a possibility, then he was not letting a mask of ignorance slip. He said:
"I don't, I really don't. I haven't known that for ten plus years, I always am very happy when I get to live another day, hopefully before I get too old. We'll see, anything is possible."
When the news of Captain America 4 was announced just before the finale of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Stan added a post on his Instagram account simply saying “Hell. Yes” in response to the news that Mackie’s Captain America would be getting his own movie. While Stan has been a part of all three Captain America movies, as well as Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers Endgame and a couple of other movie’s post credit scenes, his biggest connection to those stories was always original Captain America, Steve Rogers. With Rogers now out of the picture, there was always a question of how Bucky would fare without his former friend in the picture.
Sebastian Stan’s Bucky Barnes Still Has Connections In The MCU, Including Wakanda
The Falcon and The Winter Soldier gave Bucky Barnes a new working partner in Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson, who also had his fair share of connections with Steve Rogers, so it was fitting that Sam would become the new Captain America and Bucky would be right there by his side. This has given Sebastian Stan a likely direct route into the next Captain America movie as it would be unthinkable for him to suddenly vanish from Sam’s side as he faces one of the biggest step-ups of his life. However, that isn’t the only place that Stan’s Winter Soldier could turn up.
It has already been suggested that the character will be mentioned in the Ms. Marvel series but is not expected to appear. However, after being taken in by the Wakandans after the events of Civil War, Bucky also has a deep link to Wakanda and could well make an appearance in this year’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever or the subsequent TV series. In fact, the star even commented earlier this year that he would love to reprise his role in a Wakanda-based project in the future. Marvel tends to keep their actors on a short leash when it comes to revealing too much about their upcoming appearances, and while Stan has gone a long way to profess he is in the dark about Bucky’s future, we should remember that Andrew Garfield spent around three months solidly denying he features in Spider-Man: No Way Home, even after the movie’s initial release.