FAVORITE CHARACTER MEME: Steve Rogers + Captain America: The First Avenger [1/5 Movies]
“While editors were frantically cutting Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk at L.A.’s Tribeca West offices, [Kevin] Feige was also thinking about Captain America. As a huge fan of The Rocketeer, he was trying to secure Academy Award winner Joe Johnston to direct Cap’s first adventure. Standing in the parking lot at the corner of Bundy and Olympic, Feige had a revelation about how to solve a problem with The First Avenger’s development.
Initially, early creative discussions had determined the first half of the movie should see Cap battling enemies during World War II. Then he goes on ice. The second half would see Cap getting thawed in the present day. Feige was concerned that this structure didn’t allow the audience to get to know the most important thing about Captain America: Steve Rogers.
With The Rocketeer in Feige’s mind, he started to consider that maybe the movie should just be a full-on World War II movie, and that Rogers shouldn’t go on ice until the very end. In the early drafts, there was no focus on a skinny, everyday Steve Rogers; the story was fully committed to a super soldier getting frozen in the forties, and then fighting evil in the present day. Feige, in collaboration with [Jeremy] Latcham, realized instead that the entire film needed to put its spotlight on a thin kid with a lot of heart. And then give him powers.” - Tara Bennett and Paul Terry, The Story of Marvel Studios: The Making of the Marvel Cinematic Universe