The campaign to build positive buzz on the upcoming Captain America: The First Avenger movie began in full force today with the announcement that the official "Exclusive First Look" at the film will be in this weekend's edition of Entertainment Weekly magazine.
Featuring the first good shot of star Chris Evans in the Captain America costume, or at least one version of it, EW's article reveals that Evans had serious reservations about taking on the role and declined the role three times before finally accepting after meeting with Marvel Comics executives and director Joe Johnston. There is also a rundown of the movie's basic plot:
The movie — which also serves to set up Marvel’s 2012 superhero team-up, The Avengers -- hews closely to Captain America’s WWII-era origins. The year is 1942, and Steve Rogers is a scrawny lad who desperately wants to fight Nazis for his country but can’t because he’s been deemed physically unfit. His fate — and his physique — is radically transformed when he signs up for Project: Rebirth, a secret military operation that turns wimps into studs using drugs and assorted sci-fi hoo-ha. There’s a love interest (Major Peggy Carter, played Haley Atwell), there’s a sidekick (Bucky Barnes, played by Sebastian Stans), and there’s the Red Skull (Hugo Weaving), Hitler’s treacherous head of advanced weaponry, whose own plan for world domination involves a magical object known as The Tesseract (comic fans know it better as The Cosmic Cube).
Yes, comics fans, The Cosmic Cube is apparently now The Tesseract because "Tesseract" sounds far more sophisticated and science-fictiony than "Cosmic Cube" and it sounds far less nerdy than "Octachoron." Expect to see numerous message board postings on various geek sites by people who haven't read comics in about ten years about how the entire film has been ruined. Me, I'm just concerned about seeing what appears to be bullet scuff marks on Cap's vibranium shield...Ahem.