Earlier today Collider drew our attention to an article on FOX411, claiming that The Office’s John Krasinski, long considered frontrunner for the role, was “very likely [to be] the new Captain America”.
Immediately afterwards the internet erupted into a minor civil war, as geeks argued over the merits of Krasinski as Cap.
While he may not be the obvious choice, he’s certainly not a bad one. He doesn’t (yet) look like Steve Rogers, but he’s a decent enough actor, and can certainly pull off the pathos that the role demands. He also has done ‘soldier’ before, in a brief cameo in Jarhead.
So far, so cut and dried, except that, about half an hour ago, Deadline published an entirely different rumour, that Marvel were not only NOT about to cast Krasinski, but were also now looking at Chris Evans, in addition to the actors on the shortlist published last week.
Deadline are pretty good with this sort of thing, particularly Mike Fleming, and their sources are usually pretty sound, but it seems somewhat premature to rule Krasinski out just yet.
That said, Evans is also a pretty decent choice for the role. While he was hardly great in Fantastic 4, he was excellent in Sunshine, and was far from bad in last year’s Push. He’s also likely to go down well with the fanboys, as he certainly has the right look.
With the March 1st deadline for a decision well past, and a start date for the production of June, Marvel, and director Joe Johnson are clearly under pressure to make a choice, and make it quick. To that end we should know in the next few days who’s playing Cap. Until then, expect some hit-whore-ish speculation from around the interwebs, pretty much hourly.
