This past Sunday I sat there at a friend's house on the edge of my seat. No, not for the game, I never really was a sports person (though I was rooting for The Steelers since their my hometown team) but because I'm a movie and comic book geek, and I was waiting for the first glimpse of one of my favorite Marvel characters: Captain America.
The thirty second spot hit and I geeked out! Skinny Cap! Howling Commandos! H.Y.D.R.A! Red Skull! Everything I wanted was crammed in there! Overall the reaction to the trailer seems to be positive, even my friends who aren't comic book fans seem excited. But there's a problem.
This is the first film in a potential new franchise as well as the final film before The Avengers hit the big screen, Marvel should be promoting the hell out of this movie. Is it just me or does anyone else think that Marvel isn't doing enough to get Cap's name out there?
Marvel's other big movie this year is Thor, and Marvel has been pimping that out since last May. It started with the after credits sequence in Iron Man 2, then a Comic-Con trailer, and then stills littered throughout Summer and Fall, and finally a trailer in December. It's a pretty by-the-book way to hype your summer movie, but it works and it got the job done: people are talking about Thor.
As for Cap, well we've gotten a few stills but this was the first footage we've seen. According to rumor, we'll see a Cap trailer in front of Thor in May. Just as a reminder, The First Avenger: Captain America comes out in July. This means Marvel has two months to build the hype for what should be one of their biggest movies.
This leads me to my question. Why isn't Marvel hyping Cap more?
In my opinion, Captain America is up there with Spider-Man and Wolverine as one of Marvel's most iconic and recognizable characters. As a character, he's been around since the 40s and has years of history and fandom behind him. But why is Marvel giving him the short stick? This movie needs to be big, it needs to be epic, and I get the feeling that Marvel sees it as just an Avengers prequel.
The hype machine for Captain America should have been building just as much as Thor was. At first it seemed like it was going to be an event, seeing how Marvel placed references to Cap in all of their movies so far. But now it seems like he's playing second fiddle to the other heroes instead of being the main event.
The Captain America movie has a lot to accomplish. Not only is it meant to be a multi-million dollar summer tentpole picture, but also a start to a franchise and the final piece in the build up to the Avengers. We need to see why Captain America is such a legendary superhero, and why other superheroes look up to him. I've been saying that we need to buy Robert Downey Jr's Tony Stark taking orders from Captain America, and this movie has to show why he is such a leader. It has to be an epic movie, not as epic as The Avengers will be, but it still has to be big. But for some reason it seems Marvel is promoting Thor as the summer epic and Captain America as the smaller picture.
But why? Does Marvel not have faith in the movie? Director Joe Johnston is pretty hit or miss but it seems like he had plenty of time to prep the movie and find a suitable cast, and I gotta say that the cast is pretty solid. I always said that Chris Evans was the best part of the Fantastic Four movies and was very happy to see him get the role of Captain America. From the looks of the trailer it seems that Evans is playing up the nice guy aspect of Cap, the humble leader that isn't afraid to kick ass. Hugo Weaving as the Red Skull is dream casting and I'm pretty sure Weaving will steal the movie as usual. From the brief glimpse we got in the Superbowl spot, The Red Skull looks pretty spot on, I just hope we don't get one scene of classic Red Skull and then him in human form for the rest of the movie (much like in the cheap 1990s Cap movie). It does seem like there's one thing Marvel isn't quite so confident in: The costume.
Cap's costume seemed like a tricky thing from the get-go, and it's clear Marvel didn't think the classic costume would work. When the concept art of the costume leaked, I was a big fan of the look. But when pictures started coming out, most of them showed Cap in the costume, sans mask. And I gotta say that when pictures of Cap wearing the mask came out I could see why. For some reason the mask/helmet just seems... awkward. I dig the rest of the costume but something just looks off about the helmet. It's clear the filmmakers felt the same way seeing how even the poster has a mask-less Cap wielding the shield. Hopefully they'll correct this issue for the Avengers and future Captain America films but until then I think we'll be hearing complaints about it.
Other than the costume, I'm not really sure why Marvel isn't promoting Captain America more. Maybe they aren't happy with the movie, or maybe they think that the character is recognizable enough that they don't have to promote it. Enough pictures of merchandise have leaked onto the web to show that Marvel looks to promote the hell out of it this summer, but is two months enough? Captain America is a big character and his movie needs the big build up it deserves. This man is the Sentinel of Liberty, the leader of the Avengers, his movie needs to show him for the legend that he is. Hopefully, this July, Captain America will show us why Cap is the hero he is and not just spend two hours building up to the Avengers. The Avengers is going to be big, it needs to be big, but Cap needs to be just as big too because without him the Avengers would not be the team it is. The movie needs to deliver not just to the fans but for the general audiences as well, so they can see why people love Captain America so much.
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