Marvel Studios is eying a Summer 2011 date to kick-off a film franchise for their star-spangled hero, and now we have some news on the pre-production from director Joe Johnston himself.
Johnston (Jumanji, the soon upcoming The Wolfman) spoke to Film Journal about the current design work being done for the film, which is to be fully titled The First Avenger: Captain America.
“We’re in prep,” Johnston says. “Rick Heinrichs is production-designing and we’re set up down in Manhattan Beach [California]. It’s the part of the process that I love the most,” he enthuses. “We have eight or ten really talented artists, and we all just sit around all day and draw pictures and say, ‘Hey, wouldn’t it be cool if we could do this?’ It’s that phase of the production where money doesn’t matter: ‘Let’s put all the greatest stuff up on the wall and [then later] see what we can afford.’” The film, he says at this early stage, will begin “in 1942, 1943″ during World War II. “The stuff in the ’60s and ’70s [comic books] we’re sort of avoiding. We’re going back to the ’40s, and then forward to what they’re doing with Captain America now.”
No cast has been confirmed for the film, though reports state that Samuel L. Jackson will be reprising his recurring role as Nick Fury, though with a much larger part than in previous Marvel films.
The First Avenger: Captain America is tentatively set for July 22nd, 2001.
Awesome, Cap in WWII I can't wait. Too bad theres almost no way we could get a wolverine cameo or something. Im sure there will be lots of nerdy eastereggs though.