Red Skull Rising in the Newest Poster for 'Captain America: The First Avenger'

It occured to me today, why didn't Paramount and Marvel release Captain America: The First Avenger closer to the 4th of July weekend?  What better way to celebrate patriotism and the greatest country in the world than seeing America's hero kick some major ass.  With fireworks!  

Here's another new poster of Chris Evans, Tommy Lee Jones and other cast members running in front of a sunrise of Red Skull.  Speaking of which, the more clips and pics I see of Hugo Weaving as Red Skull the more insanely awesome I think his character will be to watch.  Is there a better actor to play a villian than Mr. Weaving?

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Red Skull Concept Art from 'Captain America' Leaked?

As the new year begins to gain steam, expect to start hearing A LOT about 2011's summer tentpoles.  More specifically, this year's superhero flicks.  We've already gotten trailers for Thor and Green Lantern, and just yesterday there were reports the X-Men: First Class and Captain America trailers would be heading out soon.

Now today, Mundo reportedly has the first concept art of Hugo Weaving's Red Skull in Captain America.  We've seen Weaving's pre-Red Skull transformation in EW's summer preview issue, but this could be the first look at the iconic character is all its glory.  I've posted the image after the jump to avoid any spoilers.

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'Captain America' Casting Updates

With Iron Man 2 just hours away, there's news from Marvel about the last Avengers on-ramp, The First Avenger: Captain America. The project was twisting in the development wind for a while, but ever since Chris Evans came aboard as America's first super soldier, Steve Rogers, things have really sped up.

Here's the latest: As had been long suspected, Hugo Weaving will play Red skull and I suppose that means his alter ego, Johann Schmidt, as well. I'm so glad Weaving continues to find interesting ways to play antagonists. This should give him plenty of space to do just that. The other news, which probably isn't terribly surprising, either, is that Howard Stark - father of Tony - will appear in Captain America. That's one way to bridge the past and the present, I guess. John Slattery from Mad Men is playing that part in Iron Man 2 and the character, if not the actor, will be featured in Cap, much the same way Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury has crossed over into more than one film. Jon Favreau tells MTV that the character could be linked to the more contemporary storylines through the last Stark Expo in 1974.

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Hugo Weaving in Talks for 'Captain America' Villain

Finally, some good news to report on the Captain America front. You know, since the movie's called The First Avenger: Captain America and the film fits into Marvel's overall plan for that entire series, which will probably run at least six years, you'd think it would be more solid leading up to this point. That hasn't been the case. Not until very recently.

Heat Vision Blog reports that Hugo Weaving, who almost made The Wolfman bearable, is the top choice to play the villainous Red Skull. Great villain, and so far, the best thing this one has to offer. We'll see if the news bears fruit, but Weaving worked with Cap director Joe Johnston on the previously mentioned Wolfman, and I've long been of the opinion that most superhero movies only go as far as their villain takes them. Historically, the better actors have been the villains and not the heroes. In fact, for the most part, if anyone in the cast had an Oscar nomination for acting, it was always the bad guy: Nicholson, Spacey, McKellen, Dafoe, Hackman, Ledger. Don't know why that is. Recently, more heroes have fit that description, too - Halle Berry and RDJ, Nic Cage and Edward Norton - but it really only worked out for Downey.

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Movie Review - 'The Wolfman'

The Wolfman Starring Benicio Del Toro, Emily Blunt, and Anthony Hopkins Directed by Joe Johnston Rated R

I'm not sure what Universal was going for with The Wolfman, but my intuition tells me this isn't it. The film should be a ready-made hit: The studio that made movie monsters household names is opening the crypt again after 70 years, but The Wolfman is a depressingly bad movie. Is it worth wondering how it went so wrong? Maybe it isn't worth your time or mine, but it should be worth someone's, because a project like this shouldn't resemble a project like this. The history of The Wolfman has been written about over and over again: It changed directors, release dates (twice), visual effects, editors, and musical scores, which it later changed back to the original work by Danny Elfman. But everything you need to make a modern Wolfman already exists. It comes from good stock, the story is known to millions, and it had support in all the right places. How on Earth did it wind up as, well, a wounded animal? Without going into the plot - which needs no introduction - it should be pointed out that very little beyond the printed page seems to work. Benicio Del Toro is almost shockingly miscast, Emily Blunt seems far too informal for the Victorian Era (strange given how well she portrayed the queen for which that half-century is named), and Anthony Hopkins is barely attentive past the point of seeing if his name is spelled correctly on the check. There are two positives for the ensemble, however. The first is the all-too-brief presence of Hugo Weaving, playing a Scotland Yard detective pursuing leads in the case of mysterious countryside maulings that he believes have a less-than-supernatural explanation. He's quite good, but by comparison, so is silence and inaction. The second plus is that you might not notice how bad the principal performers are if you pay attention to anything else.

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