Director Joe Johnston has signed to direct Captain America: The First Avenger for Marvel Studios. No writer has yet been hired for the project, though the studio hopes to have one locked down soon. Johnston first met with Marvel two years ago, where topics of discussion included the possibility of doing a Captain America film.
Johnston’s sophomore film, The Rocketeer (1991), is one of my favorite comic book adaptations, primarily because he manages to infuse the piece with not just period detail, but the 1930s, pre-World War II sense of innocence that the country had. Marvel’s plans for a Captain America movie call for the hero’s story to begin during World War II, when a scrawny Steve Rogers is given extraordinary strength and reflexes as part of an Army experiment called the Super Soldier Project. Mention of the project has already been made in last summer’s Incredible Hulk film. The interconnectedness is part of Marvel’s plans to have several of their superhero franchise pictures, including Hulk, Iron Man, Captain America and Summer 2010’s Thor, dovetail in the summer of 2011into a team up adventure, The Avengers.
Captain America: The First Avenger is scheduled for release on May 6, 2011.
Via Hollywood Reporter.
