During a recent interview with Vanity Fair, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige was asked about the past, present, and future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and it didn't take much time until talk turned to some of the difficulties which came with assembling The Avengers. Chief among them was finding Captain America and Feige kicked off by reflecting on bringing Chris Evans to the MCU.
"Casting Captain America was super hard. I started to think, “Are we not going to be able to find Captain America, and if we can’t, what are we going to do with Avengers? Is the whole thing going to fall apart?” And, then, finally opening ourselves up to Chris Evans, who we had initially sort of just looked past because he was Johnny Storm in a Fantastic Four franchise. Then, bringing him in and showing him the artwork, showing him what was happening in this movie, and he took a weekend to decide." That's right, he actually left Marvel hanging an entire weekend while he thought it over!
"He’s a reluctant star," Feige continued, "but I think he’s become—and I’ve said this to him—for as amazing as all of our actors are at embodying these characters, every single one of them, he’s one that reminds me, alongside Christopher Reeve, as just like 'these are the characters.'" That's high praise indeed and he went on to explain how the actor has come to embody the character he plays.
"I think he’s a great actor, and I think he can do whatever he wants to do, but even when you look at his Twitter account and taking a stand on things, it’s like, “Is he becoming Captain America?” Which I think is great. People forget that we started filming Avengers before either Thor or Captain America were released. What if people hated Thor? What if people thought Loki was ridiculous? What if people didn’t buy this super soldier frozen in ice? We were in the first quarter of production on a giant movie at that time, and we weren’t going to stop. It was sort of all in at that point."
With any luck, Feige will be able to convince Evans to stick around after Avengers 4 but if not, we know that there's a very good chance that Sebastian Stan's Bucky will become the new Captain America.
What do you guys make of Feige's comments here? Let us know your thoughts in the usual place.