Agent Carter (film)

• 1. Introduction

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  Agent Carter is a 2013 short film that Marvel Studios released direct-to-video through Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment. It is the fourth Marvel One-Shot. Co-producer Brad Winderbaum said the series was meant to expand the Marvel Cinematic Universe beyond the features' plots. This one centers on Peggy Carter, the character Hayley Atwell first played in Captain America: The First Avenger in 2011. Atwell reprises the role here, joined by Bradley Whitford and Dominic Cooper, under director Louis D'Esposito and writer Eric Pearson. Carter sets out to recover the mysterious Zodiac, all while facing sexism inside the SSR, the wartime agency that would later become S.H.I.E.L.D. Ahead is the story of how this modest short grew into an ambitious shoot. It covers the choices behind its look and sound, the reaction it drew, and the series it inspired.

• 2. Sexism At The SSR

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  One year after the events of Captain America: The First Avenger, Peggy Carter is working inside the Strategic Scientific Reserve. Her boss, Agent John Flynn, treats her condescendingly, keeping her on data compiling and code breaking rather than field assignments. The SSR's central problem is a serum called the Zodiac, one they have failed to recover for some time. Late one night, with the male agents out together, Carter alone answers the case line and learns where the Zodiac is being kept. Standard procedure calls for three to five agents on such a mission, but Carter goes alone. She fights off multiple guards and retrieves the Zodiac herself. The next morning, Flynn reprimands her for skipping proper procedure. He dismisses her as merely an "old flame" of Captain America's, kept on the job out of pity for her bereavement. Before he can hand down any punishment, the case line rings again. This time it is Howard Stark, calling to tell Flynn that Carter will co-head a newly formed organization named S.H.I.E.L.D. A mid-credits scene later shows Dum Dum Dugan poolside with Stark, marveling at two women wearing what were then newly created bikinis. That poolside scene did not survive the shoot exactly as planned, for reasons that had nothing to do with the script.

• 3. Playing Peggy Carter

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  Director Louis D'Esposito said Marvel had wanted a short built around Peggy Carter for a long time. He explained she was "a fan-favorite and a Marvel Studios favorite." One touch he singled out was Carter using her compact mirror to spot the villain. That moment was created on set, not scripted in advance. D'Esposito said it captured "the essence of what she's about and what the film's about." He added that despite being a woman in a man's world, Carter "still maintains her femininity." Bradley Whitford plays Flynn, Carter's dismissive SSR boss, while Dominic Cooper returns as Howard Stark, credited as the co-head and co-founder of S.H.I.E.L.D. As a hidden nod, Stark wears the same robe his son Tony wears in Iron Man 2, released in 2010. Neal McDonough reprises Timothy "Dum Dum" Dugan from earlier Marvel films, and Chris Evans appears as Steve Rogers through archive footage from The First Avenger. The voice on the other end of the case line is credited only as the "Disembodied Voice." It belongs to Shane Black, who directed and co-wrote Iron Man 3. Both D'Esposito and Pearson had one previous One-Shot behind them already: a film called Item 47.

• 4. A Bigger One-Shot

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  That earlier short, Item 47, had run on half the budget Agent Carter would receive, though both used the same number of shooting days. D'Esposito said the extra money showed on screen. "The scope of it is much bigger," he said, describing a period setting, more actors, and three fight scenes no previous One-Shot had attempted. Hayley Atwell agreed to return after watching Item 47 herself. She was drawn by a chance "to show off some of her skill sets" that the earlier film had not shown. She then spent three days rehearsing pre-choreographed fight sequences with the stunt team. D'Esposito described the guiding idea simply as "telling the best story," adding that "she's been left back in the '40s." The idea itself dated back to August 2011, when Marvel Studios first announced plans for self-contained short films released direct-to-video. These became known as the Marvel One-Shots. A Peggy Carter spinoff from Captain America: The First Avenger was floated early on. It stayed just an idea until Marvel needed a short for the Iron Man 3 home media release in 2013. The project only moved forward once Atwell's availability was confirmed. Marvel now had a bigger short to shoot, with a much smaller cushion of time than the ambition implied.

• 5. Shooting In Five Days

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  Principal photography took just five days, with Gabriel Beristain serving as cinematographer. The budget did not stretch to a storyboard artist. Instead, D'Esposito, Brad Winderbaum, and Beristain worked out a shot list together, using stand-in actors to plan each setup. Stunts were pre-filmed as well, so the cast could see the choreography before performing it themselves. One planned shot did not survive contact with the set. The mid-credits scene was meant to show Dum Dum Dugan in the pool with Stark. But the muscle suit actor Neal McDonough wore for Dugan could not get wet, so the scene moved poolside instead. D'Esposito chose to break from The First Avenger's look, made warm and sepia-toned by director Joe Johnston, in favor of a cooler blue palette. Two old lenses, one for night scenes and one for day, gave lens flares that D'Esposito felt made the period feel more modern. He used a Steadicam or a camera dolly through the action scenes to avoid, in his words, a "quick cutty or blurry or shaky" feel. Even so, the crew was "pushing our limit" to finish on schedule. D'Esposito came to accept he would not capture every planned shot, punch, or kick. Instead, he settled for what he called "the optimum." Whatever the crew could not finish on set would have to be completed another way.

• 6. Finishing The Short

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  Visual effects crews reused footage of 1940s New York from The First Avenger to help stretch the budget. D'Esposito said two sequences had to be finished this way after filming ran out of time. One was the shot of Carter "flying with the gun into the door." The other was the final fight, when she is "being attacked by the big guy." In early 2013, Marvel brought in the visual effects company Perception to build the film's main-on-end title sequence. Supervisor Sheena Duggal was asked to retell the entire story in 90 seconds. She built it from stylized versions of period imagery and images from the short itself. The final sequence blended two-dimensional and three-dimensional animation into a single flat look. Composer Christopher Lennertz, who had already worked with D'Esposito on Item 47, wrote the score. D'Esposito again wanted a period feel with a modern edge. He sent Lennertz Johnny Rivers' 1960s song "Secret Agent Man" as a reference for the tone, even though it came from a different decade entirely. That reference track would help set a tone the film carried all the way to its first public screening.

• 7. Reaching An Audience

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  Agent Carter had its full premiere at the 2013 San Diego Comic-Con, months before it reached wider audiences. It then arrived on Iron Man 3's home media release. It came first as a digital download on the 3rd of September 2013, then on Blu-ray and 3D Blu-ray on the 24th of that month. D'Esposito said the timing made sense, since Captain America: The Winter Soldier was still months away from theaters. The short later resurfaced on the "Marvel Cinematic Universe: Phase Two Collection" box set, released on the 8th of December 2015. It featured all of the Phase Two films, the other One-Shots, and audio commentary from D'Esposito and Atwell. Streaming brought further shifts. The short sat under the "Extras" tab for Iron Man 3 on Disney+, then got its own listing for the last two weeks of September 2021. It then vanished for unstated reasons. It returned on the 21st of January 2022, alongside the other One-Shots and the Team Thor films. Critics who caught the Comic-Con screening responded warmly. Rosie Fletcher of Total Film praised Hayley Atwell's performance, writing that the short "looks great and packs some euphoric action moments." Andy Hunsaker of CraveOnline scored it 8.5 out of 10, calling it a "fun treat" that "gives its title character the send-off she deserves." IGN's Scott Collura called Atwell "the big-screen female superhero we've all been waiting for," praising how she used "not just brawn but also brains." He added that Atwell "never loses touch with her feminine side" even while carrying the action. The Movie Ramblings singled out its "short, sharp and witty script mixed with some equally sharp action," naming it the best Marvel One-Shot so far. Flickering Myth called Flynn a "great foil" for Carter and praised the "post credit scene that should put a smile on everybody's face." The short went on to win the Golden Reel Award for Best Sound and Music Editing, Direct to Video - Live Action. That reaction was strong enough to send Marvel's next Peggy Carter story to network television.

• 8. A Series Of Her Own

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  ABC ordered Marvel's Agent Carter, a full television series, on the 8th of May 2014. Hayley Atwell again played Peggy Carter, and the first season's eight episodes began airing on the 6th of January 2015. Dominic Cooper and Neal McDonough returned as Stark and Dugan, D'Esposito directed the opening episode, and Christopher Lennertz came back to compose the score. Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, writers on the Captain America films, created the series. Tara Butters, Michele Fazekas, and Chris Dingess served as showrunners. The show was set in the middle of the short's own timeline, in the stretch before Carter learns she will co-head S.H.I.E.L.D. During this stretch, she secretly helps Stark on a mission the SSR never learns about. ABC renewed the series for a second season on the 7th of May 2015, expanding it to 10 episodes. The network canceled Agent Carter on the 12th of May 2016, about two years after first ordering it.