CAPTAIN AMERICA Candidates Down to 6

Sometimes when playing fantasy cast, you just have to sit back and think to yourself, “Who would I like to see get kicked in the face really, REALLY, hard?”  That would be why I ran the header pic that I did, because, more than likely, whoever plays CAPTAIN AMERICA in the Joe Johnston-directed film will be kicked in the face at least once in the course of the film.  Today, thanks to The Hollywood Reporter, we have a list of six candidates who are on Marvel’s shortlist for the lead role.

These candidates are John Krasinski (THE OFFICE), Scott Porter (FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS and SPEED RACER), Mike Vogel (CLOVERFIELD and THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE) Michael Cassidy (SMALLVILLE), and Patrick Flueger (THE 4400 and BROTHERS).  Chace Crawford (GOSSIP GIRL and the upcoming TWELVE) is expected to test screen in the next week and Garret Hedlund (TRON LEGACY), who has already tested, had to remove his name from the list due to scheduling conflicts. Scheduling issues also kept SUPERNATURAL’s Jensen Ackles off the final list. One of these things just doesn’t belong here.

That would be Krasinski who no one would have pegged as being a likely candidate for the lead role in a comic book movie until today.  Unfortunately for those who think this casting would be a bad choice (myself included), Krasinski brings the most name recognition to the table.  This could be something Marvel might jump at, but something tells me they are going more for the slightly to mostly unknown, especially if what Deadline Hollywood is reporting that Marvel is looking to offer the lead actor roughly $300K for the first film.

Of course, as was the case with THOR, Marvel may not run with any of these actors but rather find another, stronger candidate while the 30-day holds are set on everyone on this list.  We should be finding out within the next couple of weeks who will be donning the mask, wielding the starred shield, and, more than likely, getting kicked in the face.