Kevin Feige abordou isso em uma entrevista com a IGN

Ele explica que, embora haja muitos personagens que aparecem, eles não recebem arcos completos.

"There were a lot of characters in The Winter Soldier, but it felt like a very singular and relatively simple thriller. Civil War follows in that same way," Feige said. "I think that's something [directors Joe and Anthony Russo] pride themselves on, and our screenwriters Chris Markus and Steve McFeely are excellent at giving each character just enough. They're not full arcs for everybody; it's just enough that their presence is felt and important, but that the very clear single story that is being told is being served at all times."

O filme é sobre o Capitão América provar a inocência de Bucky. A Guerra Civil é apenas um dispositivo de enredo para esse fim. Temos muitas aparições de convidados, mas nenhuma delas tem muito efeito no verdadeiro coração da história. Você notará que a batalha final envolve apenas Cap, Bucky e Tony.

Mesmo Anthony Mackie discutiu recentemente com a MTV

That’s what I thought at first, when I first read it, but not at all. It really plays well with the storyline of Cap, and how he’s evolved into his own man, him doing his own thing, everybody coming together to fight for the common good of man.

Esta entrevista tem algumas citações falando sobre esse mesmo tópico, mas aqui estão algumas citações relevantes:

And we always think it’s interesting to push Captain America up against the wall. Something we found in Cap 2, frankly, is we felt Cap was more interesting when he had something to push up against. In that case it was S.H.I.E.L.D. that turned out to be corrupt. In this case, it’s the world saying, “This is how The Avengers can be run.” Who better to push up against that kind of pressure than the guy essentially wearing an American flag?

So in trying to tell the best Captain America story, it turned out Civil War actually gave us sort of the impetus for putting him, once again, at odds with the world, which is where I think he’s most effective.

- Nate Moore, produtor

Bringing it full circle is really important. We’re taking Cap to a place, there’s a level of detail that we have to be careful with, but we’re taking Cap to a place in this movie that he’s never gone before. That for us is taking Cap full circle. How do you take this guy that began where he began and had that great arc that he’s had and still take him to a place he’s never gone before? We always talk about him, he’s such a tough character in a lot of ways because he’s so strong and so centered, he has such strong ethics and morals, how do you upend a character like that? It’s easier to upend a character like Tony Stark in some ways because he’s a little all over the place and balanced and blah blah blah. You can spin him out easier so to speak. So how do you spin Cap out? We found a way to really get at the heart of who Cap is to shake his foundation, push him somewhere I think that’s going to surprise a lot of people.

- Anthony Russo, co-diretor

E possivelmente a resposta mais básica, porque é simplesmente do ponto de vista de Cap:

It’s all storytelling metrics, and you have to really think hard about those metrics. I’ll say this, obviously it will be easier for the audience to get behind Cap because it’s his movie, it’s his point of view and he has the most screen time.

- Joe Russo, co-diretor