The Captain America Movie: Casting Choices Have Been Made

I guess my first thought here is directed towards anyone who arrived here looking for the latest news updates on the Captain America movie; if you are looking for news that is less than 24 hours old, you will most likely be dissapointed. lol

I don't have any insider friends in the movie industry, I don't have any movie insider friends on Twitter (in fact I don't even do the whole Twitter thing at the moment - I know I probably should, but I don't) and I don't have a website with a daily deadline for space to be filled, so to those of you wanting page-one-of-Google-breaking-news on the upcoming Cap flick, you must have already passed the turn-off if you ended up here. ;)

Okay, that was my attempt to explain why I have not yet posted about some of the most recent casting announcements for The First Avenger: Captain America. Time to address that, eh?

Sebastian Stan as Bucky. Okay, I hear he was in the runnng for the lead and obviously didnt get it, losing out to chris Evans, so maybe Marvel/Joe Johnston liked what he had to offer and wanted to keep him in the project? I have not seen his previous efforts ( Gossip Girl, Hot Tub Time Machine) but he will be in at least a couple of films before he is seen in the future Captain America movie ( The Apparition and Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan with Natalie Portman ) so he will have some exposure by the time he appears as Bucky. Physically he looks okay for the part but ... isn't he abit old to play Bucky during WWII? I am assuming that he is in his twenties, and that the character he portrays in the Cap movie was in his late teens during the War. In the Sixties the Bucky character was retroactively killed off during WWII but recently Marvel brought back an older Bucky as the Winter Soldier (a brainwashed assassin for the KGB) so maybe they are casting with an eye ahead to future sequels which would require an older actor, but for this film it will be interesting to see how they justify having a Bucky not far off from Captain America in age. I will reserve judgement on this.

The other big casting announcement for the movie is of course the choice of Hugo Weaving for the role of the Red Skull. I love Weaving and think that he would be a very good fit for the role. I understand that we are still working with rumours about his signing on but it sounds like an almost done deal. I was at first concerned that he might have no original characters left in him, but realized that I probably don't need to worry. His adaptability as an actor could be key here; Weaving is use to portraying a character from behind a mask (V For Vendetta), supplying a voice for a CGI character (Transformers), while wearing minor prosthetics (Lord Of The Rings) and portraying coldly evil individuals(The Matrix), so what's to worry? Maybe just worry that he has not yet been completely confirmed as being cast yet? Well the movie starts filming in June, so we shall all know soon enough. Now I'm off to find something else to worry about...

NEW CAPTAIN AMERICA?

Marvel Comics Revives Capt. America

[This isn't directly related to the upcoming Captain America movie, but it does reflect on the popularity of the character and why he is still considered a viable film property.]

By John Rogers, Associated Press Writer Captain America, Once Dead and Gone, Is Back ... Sort Of.

It turns out you can't keep a good man down -- or even dead and buried -- when he wears a red, white and blue uniform and calls himself Captain America.

Marvel Comics, which killed off the veteran superhero almost a year ago, brought him back to life Wednesday -- sort of.

Captain America's alter-ego, Steve Rogers, is still resting in peace at Arlington National Cemetery, having been done in by assassins last March. But his good buddy and sidekick from the 1940s, Bucky Barnes, has picked up the bulletproof Captain America shield, put on a new uniform and taken his place.

What's that you say? Wouldn't Bucky be about 85 years old now? And without any real super powers to fall back on, isn't that kind of long in the tooth to be taking a bite out of crime?

Well, yeah. But remember, this is the comic book world we're talking about. Bucky was put in suspended animation by the evil Russians (back when they were evil) and stayed that way for the better part of 60 years.

"So he's probably in his late 20s right now," jokes Marvel Editor in Chief Joe Quesada, who decided to promote him to Captain America.

Rogers' old sidekick had already returned to the Marvel pantheon of heroes some time back as the rugged Winter Soldier, redeeming himself for the years he'd spent under the control of the bad guys, who would occasionally thaw him out for evil deeds.

"We were toying with the idea of someone new taking over the mantle of Captain America," Quesada said by phone from his New York office. "But we kept coming back to Bucky. Not only because he seemed such an obvious choice but especially because of the fact that when we brought him back as the Winter Soldier he was so incredibly popular."

Barnes never swallowed the "Super Soldier Serum" that transformed the wimpy Rogers into the super-strong Captain America in the months before World War II. So he's at a bit of a disadvantage in his new role. But he's bulked up himself over the years, become a master at special operations and he's also packing some serious heat these days along with that mask and shield.

But forget about defeating enemies in the fantasy world. The people he will really have to win over are those notoriously finicky comic book readers.

Quesada says he isn't worried, however, adding that killing off Captain America last year seemed to give him new life with readers. The editor was taken aback when newspapers even carried obituaries on the character.

"Not since the 1940s have we seen Cap being this popular," he said.

Look what I found...

I was poking around on the interweb and came across some cheesy Captain America goodness; Below are the trailers for the last two Captain america movies, 1979 and 1989 respectively. Hopefully whatever is to come with the new Captain america movie will help us to forget the past ... well, except for when we need a good laugh, now and then. (Thanks to the folks at videodetective.com for making these two trailers available!)

Enjoy!

captain america (1979)

visit videodetective.com for more info

captain america (1989)

visit videodetective.com for more info

A MORE RECENT 'VISION'

I came across this tribute video to the last version of Captain America (from 1991). The actual film itself was pretty cheesy from all reports, but this little montage was nicely done and gives you an overall sense of where the movie was coming from.

Enjoy:

NEW CAPTAIN AMERICA MOVIE?

At this time, we don't really have much in the way of concrete information on any new Captain America movie; It is too early for us to dissect any early new captain america movie trailer, to early to ooh and ahh at any captain america movie poster, and definitely too early to drool over any captain america movie action figures. However, while we wait for further developments in this project, why not check out my Iron Man movie page over on Blogger. There you can catch all the latest Iron Man news, images and trailers from the upcoming Marvel movie.