Anthony Mackie has suggested 'Outside the Wire' could be a big movie franchise like the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The 42-year-old actor - who played Falcon in the 'Avengers' films and will reprise the role in 'The Falcon and the Winter Soldier' Disney+ series - admitted he wants his latest action blockbuster to follow a similar path by delving deeper into his android military officer character Leo.

He told Forbes: "The whole idea was for this to be a franchise. He’s such a cool character, and it’s such a fascinating world, especially with it being in the not so distant future.

"You can have many different spin-offs and ideas that come along with this with both lead characters.

"I equate Leo, my character, very much to the Winter Soldier in 'Captain America'. Every time there’s a situation, they spin him back up to handle the crime or the situation.

"You have to inform him of what’s happened, what he’s missed, what’s going on, and then you send him out to save the day.”

Mackie - who also has a producer credit on 'Outside the Wire' - noted there is plenty of scope for various spin-offs.

He added: "It can go into the far, far future, or it can literally take place at any point along the timeline.

"here have been so many incarnations of Leo. You can go back to his backstory and show the very first one, who he was and how he was created to be a supersoldier of sorts.”

The star is delighted to be fronting his own action blockbuster after always wanting to be Wesley Snipes, but he doesn't undersand the stigma around a genre which launched the careers of the likes of Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones.

He said: "If you look at Tommy Lee Jones, if you look at Harrison Ford, if you look at all these huge movie stars, these are the type of movies they made, that people grew up enjoying, and I’ve always wanted to do one.

"As a kid, and sometimes as an adult, you don’t want to think, and you don’t want to be slapped in the face with information. Sometimes you just want to chill out and enjoy a movie for entertainment.”