The Hollywood Reporter’s Heat Vision Blog has some exclusive casting news for us today: Hugo Weaving is in talks for the villainous role of Red Skull in Captain America. If this is true, it would reunite Weaving with director Joe Johnston; the two recently collaborated on The Wolfman for Universal.
No contracts have been signed yet, but the trade expects an official announcement regarding Weaving’s involvement sometime in the next few days. At least they’re giving us a loose timetable here; the amount of speculation and casting curveballs thrown by this film are the most chaotic in recent memory.
Honestly, I’ve never read a Captain America comic in my life. The most knowledge I have of the character comes from overhearing conversations about the recent Marvel Comics event Civil War, in which he is prominently featured. So while we wait around for final confirmation on who is going to carry the star-spangled shield, I’ll share an interesting bit of trivia for you regarding the Red Skull. According to Marvel.com’s profile page of the character, at one point he operated under the alias “Mr. Smith.” The eyebrow-raising parallel, of course, being that arguably Hugo Weaving’s most famous role is Agent Smith from The Matrix films. Click on over to Wikipedia for an exhaustive run down of the character.
Marvel fans, rise up! Since I don’t know the character very well, let us know in the comments below if you think Hugo Weaving would make a good Red Skull. If not, who would you rather see?
Prometheus
The Dark Knight Rises
The Hobbit
Man of Steel
Amazing Spider-Man
Skyfall
Star Trek 2
The Wolverine