Joe Johnston’s groundbreaking design work on ‘Star Wars,’ ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ helped land him ‘Captain’ chair, Kevin Feige says. By Kara Warner, with reporting by Josh Horowitz Captain America Photo: Marvel Comics Summer 2011 is going to be a big one for comic book movies — specifically because of two features from Marvel Studios: “Captain America” and “Thor.” And while there’s still almost a full year to go until those films are released, ever since the casts of the two flicks made appearances at San Diego Comic-Con last month, the Internets have been buzzing with anticipation for the star-spangled hero and the God of Thunder. When Marvel’s head honcho Kevin Feige stopped by our live stream during the Con, we peppered him with questions about all of their upcoming projects, including how they decided on putting Joe Johnston and Kenneth Branagh in the director’s chairs . With Branagh, who’ll helm “Thor,” Feige said, in a nutshell, he “chased it.” In Johnston’s case, however, the reasons had more to do with Johnston’s already well-established filmmaking cred. “I think Joe’s entire career has been leading up to this,” Feige told MTV News. “When you look at the design work he did on the original ‘Star Wars,’ I saw a bunch of people dressed as Boba Fett already lined-up for his signing,” Feige recalled fondly. “The work he did with [Steven] Spielberg on Raiders [of the Lost Ark], the two films he directed, of course ‘The Rocketeer.’ I think his whole career has been leading up to this movie.” Johnston is certainly no stranger to genre/fantasy filmmaking. In addition to having served as art director on some of the most visually intense and celebrated movies of all time — the first two original “Star Wars” films and the aforementioned “Raiders of the Lost Ark” — he also directed “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids,” “Hidalgo” and “The Wolfman.” As for Johnston’s take on “Captain America,” his star, Chris Evans , told us that the film will be highly stylized, but not too “glossy” and not too dark. “I definitely asked Joe, what kind of gloss are we going for here? Is this going to have the kind of ‘Spider-Man,’ ‘Fantastic Four’ shine?” Evans recalled. “He said it’s not going to be that glossy, not that colorful, but we’re not going as dark as something like ‘Batman.’ ” Check out everything we’ve got on “Thor” and “Captain America: The First Avenger” . For breaking comic book movie news, columns and more — updated around the clock — visit SplashPage.MTV.com .
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‘Captain America’ Director’s ‘Entire Career’ Got Him Job, Marvel Boss Says
