In what is probably the biggest casting surprise of the year, Robert Redford is talks to appear in Marvel Studio’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Deadline is reporting that the iconic actor will be playing a ranking official in the spy organization SHIELD, which is run in the Marvel films by Samuel L. Jackson’s Col. Nick Fury. Marvel has not yet commented on the report.
Redford has been in a number of films that make him a good fit for the film’s tone, which studio honcho Kevin Feige has described as “political thriller.”
Although there is no firm word about the components of the deal, I would not be surprised if Redford was signed for appearances in multiple, to-be-named-as-they-go films, so we may see Redford appearing in The Avengers 2, Ant-Man, Iron Man 4 or any other film the studio has in development.
Equally vague is the character whom Redford will be playing. All we have to go on is that he has “a senior leadership role in SHIELD.” While discussing the casting with our Comic Book Film editor William Gatevackes suggested that he might be playing an older, “slow-aged” Dum-Dum Dugan, noting a resemblance between Redford and Neal McDonough, who played World War Two-era Dum-Dum in the 2011 Captain America: The First Avenger. (In one of the deleted scenes on the Avengers blu-ray we see Steve Rogers, aka Captain America, looking through the dossiers of his old WWII buddies and seeing that of some of them had died while he was in suspended animation, but Dum-Dum Dugan’s file isn’t seen.)
Joe and Anthony Russo are directing the film from a script by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely. Captain America: The Winter Soldier is scheduled for release on April 4, 2014.
But cool……
Wow, break out the special lens, yo.