Even though filming is still some time away, recently director Joe Johnston told MTV Splashpage a casting decision on who would portray Captain America in The First Avenger “was weeks away.” Well, weeks have gone by and according to Deadline Hollywood, the list of actors for the titular role has been narrowed down to five finalists.

The five front-runners for the role of Captain America are, according to the site, Chace Crawford (Gossip Girl), John Krasinski (The Office), Scott Porter (Friday Night Lights), Mike Vogel (Cloverfield) and Michael Cassidy (Smallville). All five actors have reportedly agreed to test deals with Johnston and Marvel Studios to try out for the role.

Not only must these actor agree to test for the role, if eventually cast, they must also sign for nine other options, including potential sequels to The First Avenger. This makes sense considering the upcoming Marvel movies and their desire to team them all for a potential Avengers movie in the future. Still, that’s a lot to negotiate.

Of course, fans everywhere have their personal favorites and I we have ours. Picking from this list as if these were the only choices, our first choice would be Smallville‘s Michael Cassidy. He’s able to do the action as well as being a pretty good actor as well, so he’d be good for the part.

Sadly, our favorite choice of all and not on this list, Joel Gretsch (The 4400, V), is probably too old now, even though he would be great in the part. No matter who they choose, let’s hope they take this movie as seriously and do as great a job on it as Marvel did with Iron Man. Cap deserves no less.

Who do you think should play Captain America in The First Avenger?

I had some major reservations going into the screening of The Wolfman. For those of us who followed the film’s production, there were frequent rumors of strife on the set, and then there was an ominous release date switch at the last moment. However, once the film began, those reservations were put to rest. I had a blast seeing this new vision of the classic movie monster brought to life.

Director Joe Johnston manages to deliver an atmospheric Gothic thriller, full of foggy London moors, mythical beasts, and buckets and buckets of blood and gore. When all was said and done, I was willing to forgive some story flaws, because this was just so much fun for the horror fan in me. The film is a nice throwback to the monster movies of the 40′s, and has a distinctly nostalgic feel.

A perfectly cast Benicio Del Torro (who has a very feral look in real life) plays Lawrence, who has been living in America, but has been summoned to return to London because his brother has gone missing.  By the time Lawrence reaches his family’s dilapidated mansion, his brother’s mutilated body has been found in a ditch.  Lawrence’s father (a diabolical Anthony Hopkins) seems curiously nonplussed by the whole ordeal, and clearly harbors a deep-rooted dislike of his remaining son.

Lawrence makes a promise to his brother’s grieving fiancé Gwen (Emily Blunt) that he will solve the mystery of what happened to his brother.  His quest takes him to a nearby gypsy camp that has fallen under the suspician of the townspeople. While he is talking to some of the gypsies, a creature attacks the camp with undiscriminating zeal.  Sheer mayhem occurs as decapitations, amputations, and slashed throats lay in the wake of the beast’s assault.

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In news for a film that could be considered dead in the water already, the site and online marketing campaign for Universal’s upcoming The Wolfman has gone live. The film has been bounced around more times than the Watchmen property back in the mid 90′s, and doesn’t look like it’s for the better.

Production began back in 2006 (which is now nearly 4 years ago) when Universal announced that Benicio Del Toro would be taking on the titular role. A year later, a list of names that included Mark Romenek, Brett Ratner, Frank Darabont, and Martin Campbell were at one point attached to the project, all falling off and leaving way for Joe Johnston (Jumanji, The Rocketeer) to take the helm in early 2008.

From there, the project was bumped from it’s original release date twice, due to reshoots and tweaks, with a final release date of February 12, 2010. The site includes some nice features, including Twitter integration, a full moon calendar, and an interesting history of Universal Monsters.

Check out the site, and be prepared for the film (and supposed Universal attraction to follow) hitting theaters on February 12.

If you were debating whether or not you wanted to see Benicio Del Toro in Wolfman because it was too folky and epic, how would you like it if the film was set to a generic rock tune?

Well, Universal Pictures answered your prayers with the newest trailer for Wolfman. It’s got more Benicio, more Wolf, and a Marilyn Manson soundtrack.

The film itself has had quite a tumultuous post-production. Originally, the film was set to have Mark Romanek (One Hour Photo) as director, who later stepped down. Then, the studio met with names like Brett Ratner, Frank Darabont, James Mangold, and Martin Campbell, until finally deciding on Joe Johnston (The Rocketeer).

Once finished, the film bounced around with three separate release dates, two being in 2009, and then finally sticking to a release of February, 2010. It’s on record that January and February is where movies go to die.

Either way, check out the cool new trailer after the jump, and catch Benicio and the gang in theaters on February 12, 2010.

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It looks like today is Trailer Day, after Fox released the first teaser trailer for Avatar earlier. Now Universal has released the first trailer for their Wolf Man reboot starring Benicio Del Toro. The film, which finished it’s production a few months ago, looks to be a pretty fair reinterpretation of the original Universal Monster movie.

Company favorite Joe Johnston (The Rocketeer, Jurassic Park 3) took the helm for this film, which is the last project he is doing before taking the director’s seat over at Marvel Studios for The First Avenger: Captain America. The writing team consisted of David Self (Road to Perdition) and Andrew Kevin Walker (Se7en).

The film also stars Emily Blunt, Hugo Weaving, Anthony Hopkins, along with Benicio Del Toro, who is doing an American accent for the first time. Check out the brand new trailer, courtesy of Yahoo Movies,  after the jump.

Universal’s The Wolf Man hits theaters February 12 of next year.

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Director Louis Leterrier has done quite a lot for action films, including a series of fun Transporter movies. He also helped us forget about what Ang Lee did to The Hulk. Though both fanboys and studios are split down the middle on how Leterrier’s Incredible Hulk actually turned out, he is still talking about doing more work with Marvel Studios and even the “jade giant” himself.

In an interview with the LA Times, the director talked about his real dream for the next few Marvel movies.

I’ll tell you my real dream: To work with Joe Johnston, [“Thor” director] Kenneth Branagh and Jon Favreau and make like a triptych. We do four movies. We release them one a month for the summer. Or even every two weeks or three weeks. And the whole summer would be Avengers summer. So we do it the way they make television shows. One story arc but told in installments by different directors.

So all of the directors that touch part of the Avengers world would do a part; we could make the movies shorter, maybe less than an hour and a half, and we use the same sets and save Marvel money. I would love to sit around a table with all of them a kick around the story. That’s my dream.

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