So how can CAPTAIN AMERICA have a WW-II movie & be part of a modern day AVENGERS?

Those eagle eyed readers will have noticed that Marvel’s upcoming Captain America movie has gone through a slight name change.

The film will now be titled The First Avenger: Captain America which undoubtedly in my mind sounds better than Captain America: The First Avenger.

Also we now have some plot details and the good news is that the origin film will be set in the World War II period with Steve Rogers fighting off the Nazi’s and volunteering to be the test subject in a new top-secret defense program for the U.S. army. The experiment required Rogers to take a super strength serum which the government could never replicate, leaving Rogers as an ultimate fighting weapon and symbol of American strength.

Now I know what your thinking… “Matt, if it’s set in WW-II, then how will an eventual Avengers team-up work with the modern day Hulk and Iron Man?”.

Well in the comics to bring Rogers to the modern day, they ran a storyline where The Avengers discovered Steve Rogers’ body in a block of ice where he had been preserved. They resusitated him and hey presto… Captain America is transported to the modern day and is in the Avengers. That will likely be the opening or close to the opening scene of the team-up film which remember is scheduled to take place May 6th 2011, just one year after Cap’s origin film in 2010.

Marvel Studio’s head honcho Kevin Feige said this to CHUD…

The sky’s the limit right now. It’s us being very cautious and careful about how we do these crossovers so that we don’t collapse under our own weight - as even every 12 or 15 years the comics do; they revamp and do new number ones and get back to what the characters were all about. I don’t want [the movies] to forget what the characters are all about and, knock on wood, the interconnectivity will be that extra bit of fun for comic fans. And I think that everybody that stayed in their seats to watch the Nick Fury scene at the end of Iron Man are, whether they read comic books or not, fans of the bigger Marvel continuity.

No word yet on casting (Feige dismissed the unfounded rumor of Matthew McConaughey), which will no doubt have to happen soon if Cap is to hit that 2010 release date. If I remember rightly, it was October/November time that Robert Downey Jr. was announced for Iron Man in 2006 with Jon Favreau being attached as a director months before then, so we are talking the next few months as being critical in finding the right team for this much anticipated picture.

Before I saw the trailer for The Happening, I would have gone for Mark Wahlberg but now I’m not so sure if his line delivery would be strong enough. The problem Marvel has is there aren’t many real large physical male specimens out there who can act and be convincing as the world’s super solider. And of course with Edward Norton and Robert Downey Jr as two of their big heroes, they need Cap to really be a big name and presence… and he won’t be easy to find.

source - /film

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