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Captain America Gets a Creative Team

Wednesday, 19 November 2008

It's been a long wait, but "The First Avenger: Captain America" is officially off to a strong start.

While the project has been in the works for some time, this week Marvel announced that screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely would be joining director Joe Johnston in forming the core creative team behind the upcoming Marvel franchise. While these decisions may seem a bit odd at first, looking over their body of work makes me feel like this might finally be the Captain America movie we've all been waiting for.

While we've already been nitpicking over our choice of actor to play Cap (you can read that article HERE ), we haven't spent as much time discussing the real heroes behind a successful franchise launch: the director and writers. Where would Iron Man be if Jon Favreau hadn't knocked it out of the park with a script written by the writing team behind the brilliant Children of Men? What would Batman Begins have turned out like if it hadn't been wrangled by a visionary like Christopher Nolan with a script from longtime comic-book-movie scribe David S. Goyer?

The choice behind the creative team is ultimately what makes or breaks a comic book movie. The cast can be forgivable (for instance, the reverse casting of Tobey Maguire and James Franco in Spiderman), but as long as the writing and directing are still stellar, the movie will succeed. That being said, let's take a closer look at Marvel's picks to helm the most highly anticipated superhero franchise to date:

Joe Johnston - Director

When Marvel first announced this several weeks ago, I actually had to search IMDB for him because I couldn't place his work. My reaction was worse when I actually found out who he was.

"They're giving Cap to the same guy behind Jumanji... the guy behind Honey, I Shrunk the Kids!!??", I scoffed loudly.

I was almost ready to write the movie off as another failure-in-the-making until a very strange thing happened: I sat down and re-watched his films.

Not from the standpoint of a moviegoer, but as a fellow artist. Not from the standpoint of writing, or from the cast choices, but based solely on the directorial vision behind each of them. After that, I can say without a doubt that Marvel has the right man for the job. Sure, Johnston may have directed Jumanji, but he also directed a personal favorite of mine (The Rocketeer), the movie that proves that Jake Gyllenhaal is an A-List actor through-and-through (October Sky), and a sleeper Viggo Mortensen hit (Hidalgo).

What do all these movies have in common? A sweeping dramatic feel with retro sensibilities and a sharp focus on action. October Sky was like a Norman Rockwell painting come to life, and made even something as simple as model rockets seem breathtaking. The Rocketeer was a 1940's serial reborn in the modern era. Hell, even Jumanji had a bit of that old Hollywood glamour about it. Johnston's ability to craft iconic scenes and memorable moments between his cast members makes this a very savvy choice on Marvel's part, and gets my whole-hearted thumbs up.

Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely - Writers

Again - another choice by Marvel that seems odd at first, but then slowly starts to make sense if you think about it. Markus and McFeely (hmm, sounds like a vaudeville act) are best known - or should I say, solely known - for their previous two entries in "The Chronicles of Narnia" live action movie franchise: The Lion, The Witch, and the Warddobe and Prince Caspian.

Yeah, I know. The thought of putting Captain America into the hands of a writing team responsible for a kiddy action movie with heavy Christianic overtones is a bit unsettling. But hear me out here - think about the task they had ahead of them when creating those movies: they had heavily detailed and finely nuanced source material and a rabid fan base that would have eaten them alive if the movie had been a flop. Sound familiar?

They've proved that they can take a larger work and distill it down to it's two-hour essence while still leaving enough action, drama, and character development intact to make it worth seeing. Say what you will about the Narnia series, both movies were very skillfully written. Sure, I'm anxious to see if they can tackle the WWII-era war scenes and Cap's origins without flinching, but I honestly believe that these two are up to the monumental task of bringing Steve Rogers to life.

Not to mention: there's no way Marvel is letting them do this alone. They may be the key writers, but I can almost guarantee that they will bring in their go-to writing staff to clean up any rough edges or script issues, so there's yet another level of checks and balances behind the final product.

Overall, Marvel may be taking a bit of a gamble with this creative team. As we've learned in the past, a gamble like this can either be extraordinarily good (like letting Favreau helm Iron Man), or extraordinarily bad (like letting Sam Raimi write Spiderman 3 himself instead of hiring someone). Personally, I hope this team comes together and finally creates a Captain America movie worth seeing. Or seeing twice. Or seeing a dozen times.

Peter Sorensen is a part-time reviewer and once made a Cap shield out of a BBQ lid. You can email him here or follow his updates on Twitter.

Thoughts? Opinions? Do you like this creative team? Do you think Marvel has lost their damn minds? Post a comment below and let us know!

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