By Danny R. Johnson
LOS ANGELES – In 1940, American writer Joe Simon conceived the idea for Captain America and made a sketch of the character in costume. “I wrote the name ‘Super American’ at the bottom of the page,” Simon said in his autobiography.
“No, it didn’t work. There were too many ‘Supers’ around. ‘Captain America’ had a good sound to it. There weren’t a lot of captains in comics. It was as easy as that. The boy companion was simply named Bucky, after my friend Bucky Pierson, a star on our high school basketball team.”
Simon recalled in his autobiography that Timely Comics publisher Martin Goodman gave him the go-ahead and directed that a Captain America solo comic book series be published as soon as possible. Needing to fill a full comic with primarily one character’s stories, Simon did not believe that his regular creative partner, artist Jack Kirby, could handle the workload alone. Kirby assured Joe Simon all was well and that he could handle the deadlines. Captain America Comics #1 — cover-dated March 1941 and went on sale December 20, 1940, a year before the attack on Pearl Harbor, but a full year into World War II — showed the protagonist punching Nazi leader Adolf Hitler in the jaw; it sold nearly one million copies.
Simon readily admits that Captain America was a consciously political creation; he and Kirby were morally repulsed by the actions of Nazi Germany in the years leading up to the United States’ involvement in World War II and felt war was inevitable: “The opponents to the war were all quite well organized. We wanted to have our say too.”
With his sidekick Bucky, Captain America faced Nazis, Japanese, and other threats to wartime America and the Allies. Stanley Lieber, now better known as Stan Lee, contributed to the character in issue #3 in the filler text story Captain America Foils the Traitor’s Revenge, which introduced the character’s use of his shield as a returning throwing weapon. Captain America soon became the most popular character of the early years of the Marvel Comics franchise and even had a fan-club called the “Sentinels of Liberty.”
Now Captain America is just shy of celebrating 75 years of supporting freedom and the American Way. Who cares? Well, all the millions of fans [including myself] who grew up with the character in comics from the 1940s to the present age. And the younger generation, still devouring Batman, Superman comics in a new, hipper hi-tech format.
And next week, on APRIL 4, 2014, moviegoers attending the opening of Marvel Studios and Walt Disney Studios’ Captain America: The Winter Soldier, with Chris Evans as Steve Rogers / Captain America, Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff / Black Widow, Sebastian Stan as James “Bucky” Barnes / Winter Soldier, Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson / Falcon, Robert Redford as Alexander Pierce, and Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury–will spend millions to see the S.H.I.E.L.D. team go into action.
The film has surely has consumer anticipation — reports have it paparazzi gold diggers tried to rent out helicopters to get photos from the film’s exclusive Washington, DC set, but were stopped dead in their tracks due to the heavy no-fly-zone around the nation’s capital. In the U.S., fans reportedly paid $12 to get into theaters where the 90-seconds trailer was being shown, then left before the main feature. The market is already clogged with Captain America products –including miniature dolls, costumes pins, corporate endorsements, backpacks, and the infamous shield — and yes there were talks of even lending the Captain America face/name to boxer shorts as part of a huge merchandising campaign. Rest assured loyal fans – Disney and Marvel Comics shot that idea down as fast as a silo missile.
The film behind the hullabaloo has been two years in gestation, beginning in late 2011 sscreenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely said in April 2011 that they had begun writing a sequel for Marvel Studios. In a June 2011 interview, McFeely said, “The story will likely be in the present day. We’re experimenting with flashback elements for more period World War II stuff. I can’t say much more than that but we made it baggy enough to refer to more stories in the past”.
McFeely later revealed that 98% of the shooting script takes place in the present day, and that the first few months of writing were a back and forth process with Marvel, but that after an outline was finished, the story didn’t change much. Markus and McFeely wanted to adapt American comic book writer and cartoonist Ed Brubaker’s Winter Soldier storyline from the comics, but it took those six months to convince themselves that they could do it. The two settled on the conspiracy genre for the screenplay and cited Three Days of the Condor, The Parallax View, and Marathon Man as influences.
In September 2011, Chris Evans said that a sequel may not be released until 2014. In January 2012, Neal McDonough, who played Dum Dum Dugan in Captain America: The First Avenger, mentioned that a sequel would likely be filmed after the completion of Thor: The Dark World, which would likely be before the end of 2012.
By March 2012, Marvel whittled down a field of ten potential directors to three candidates; George Nolfi (The Adjustment Bureau), F. Gary Gray (The Italian Job), and brothers Anthony and Joseph Russo (Community) to helm the sequel. Walt Disney Studios announced the planned release of the sequel to Captain America: The First Avenger on April 4, 2014. Disney stated, “The second installment will pick-up where The Avengers leaves off, as Steve Rogers continues his affiliation with Nick Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D. and struggles to embrace his role in the modern world.”
Markus later elaborated, “I think S.H.I.E.L.D. is the water [Rogers is] swimming in. It’s definitely a Captain America movie. You know, if the first movie was a movie about the U.S. Army, then this is a movie about S.H.I.E.L.D. You will learn about S.H.I.E.L.D. You will learn about where it came from and where it’s going and some of the cool things they have.”
Without giving away too much details of the film — there is the superb special effects and breath-taking live action scenes in the film. They are as good in their way as any you have seen, and they come thick and fast. The movie is, in fact a triumph in imagination over both the difficulties of technology and the inhibitions of money.
Check out Captain America: The Winter Soldier action packed trailer: http://marvel.com/captainamerica#/home
Production
A Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures release of a Marvel Studios presentation. Produced by Kevin Feige. Executive producers, Louis D’Esposito, Alan Fine, Victoria Alonso, Michael Grillo, Stan Lee. Co-producer, Nate Moore.
Crew
Directed by Anthony Russo, Joe Russo. Screenplay, Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely, based on the Marvel comic by Joe Simon, Jack Kirby. Camera (Technicolor, Arri Alexa HD, widescreen), Trent Opaloch; editors, Jeffrey Ford, Mathew Schmidt; music, Henry Jackman; music supervisor, Dave Jordan; production designer, Peter Wenham; supervising art director, Thomas Valentine; art directors, Beat Frutiger, Kevin Ishioka; set designers, Aric Cheng, Jann Engel, Richard Mays, Barbara Mesney, David Moreau, Julien Pougnier, Anshuman Prasad, Paul Sonski, Mike Stassi, Randy Wilkins; costume designer, Judianna Makovsky; sound (Datasat/Dolby Atmos/Dolby Digital), Petur Hliddal; sound designers, David C. Hughes, Al Nelson; supervising sound editors, Shannon Mills, Daniel Laurie; re-recording mixers, Tom Johnson, Juan Peralta; visual effects supervisor, Dan Deleeuw; visual effects and animation, Industrial Light & Magic; visual effects, Base FX, Scanline VFX, Luma Pictures, Trixter, Cantina Creative, Perception, Lola VFX, the Embassy, Whiskytree, Rise Visual Effects Studios, Logan, Sony Pictures Imageworks, Technicolor, Capital T; prosthetics and suit effects, Legacy Effects; stunt coordinators, Spiro Razatos, Thomas Robinson Harper; assistant director, Lars P. Winther; second unit director, Spiro Razatos; second unit camera, Igor Meglic; casting, Sarah Halley Finn.
Supporting Cast
Chris Evans, Samuel L. Jackson, Scarlett Johansson, Robert Redford, Sebastian Stan, Anthony Mackie, Cobie Smulders, Frank Grillo, Maximiliano Hernandez, Emily VanCamp, Hayley Atwell, Toby Jones, Stan Lee, Callan Mulvey, Jenny Agutter, Bernard White, Alan Dale, Chin Han, Garry Shandling. (English, French, Russian dialogue)
Danny R. Johnson is San Diego County News’ Entertainment News Editor.
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