Captain America’s Director Was Supposed To Tackle A Much Bigger Marvel Hero

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In retrospect, Joe Johnston is an extremely important director in the history of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. After all, it was his “Captain America: The First Avenger” that found the MCU’s emotional core and arguably its greatest hero upon its release in 2011, all while teeing up “The Avengers.” The movie also served as our introduction to Chris Evans as Steve Rogers, who became a real anchor for this franchise. But before Johnston put his stamp on Cap, he nearly tackled a very different, and far bigger, Marvel superhero.

Prior to the MCU’s success, Marvel sold off most of its character rights to various Hollywood studios. That’s why Sony owns the movie rights to “Spider-Man” and the same reason why Universal Pictures holds the rights to the Incredible Hulk and solo films based on that character. In fact, the studio spent years developing a movie about the big green guy in the lead up to Ang Lee (“Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”) bringing “Hulk” to a theater near you in 2003.

Johnston, as it were, was among the filmmakers once set to helm a movie based on that very Marvel Comics character (as created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby). In a 1997 Variety report breaking down the “mania for Marvel” that was going on in Hollywood at the time, it was revealed that Johnston, coming off “Jumanji,” was working on an “Incredible Hulk” feature film with screenwriter Jonathan Hensleigh (“Armageddon”).

This was even before “Blade” became both a modest box office hit and one of the most important movies ever made, as it proved Marvel could deliver a mainstream success (and not just direct-to-video fare). Once “X-Men” hit in 2000, there was no longer any doubt. But back when Johnston was attached to his Hulk project, that wasn’t the case.

As Variety reported in 1998, Jonathan Hensleigh was set to make his feature directorial debut on a Hulk movie before it was placed on the back burner. (By that point, the studio had already spent $20 million on development.) As for Joe Johnston, it’s unclear why he departed the film, but he went on to direct “October Sky” and “Jurassic Park III” instead.

Even though “Hulk” was based on a very popular character, Ang Lee’s movie was by no means a success. Against a budget of $137 million, it made just $245 million at the box office. Universal moved quickly after Sam Raimi’s “Spider-Man” saved superhero movies from being just a fad, delivering record-breaking levels of success. It was the first film to ever make at least $100 million on a single weekend. That opened the floodgates.

Lee’s “Hulk” didn’t pan out commercially, but it’s undeniable that Hulk himself was one of Marvel’s most popular characters at that time. Captain America, as hard as it may be to fathom now, wasn’t on the same level back then. It was in no small part thanks to Joe Johnston’s work on “The First Avenger” that the tide changed. One year later, “The Avengers” became a box office hit that redefined blockbuster filmmaking. If Johnston’s solo Cap movie hadn’t worked, who knows if that big crossover would have panned out as well.

By MCU standards, “The First Avenger” was a modest success, pulling in $370 million at the box office. However, it’s come to be regarded as one of the MCU’s most underrated movies to date. That’s largely thanks to Joe Johnston.

You can grab “Captain America: The First Avenger” on 4K, Blu-ray, or DVD from Amazon.