So says MTV’s Splash Page blog. I doubt it’ll happen, though. As we’re seeing with the upcoming Green Lantern movie (to the chagrin of some), Hollywood studios tend to prefer the safe choice – Hal Jordan, the Green Lantern of the aging baby boomer generation that dominates comics fandom, which includes a growing number of Hollywood types – over the less safe one – John Stewart, the character used in the animated Justice League cartoons and is the Green Lantern to a much younger generation of viewers – when it comes to making movies these days. The proliferation of films based on pre-existing properties (books, comics, TV shows, video games, even toys and board games) coupled with the need to position them as potential “franchises” from which to make multiple sequels is proof of their conservatism. It takes a maverick like a James Cameron or a Quentin Tarantino or a Steven Soderbergh to get the studios to take a chance and think outside the box – and even that doesn’t come easily or without great cost.

I give Kevin Feige credit for lining up quality talent in front of and behind the camera for the films Marvel Studios has put together so far, and I agree with him when he says that a Captain America film will need a big star to sell it overseas. But is he really willing to go against 70 years of comics history – not to mention risking the wrath of Fandom Assembled – by pulling the trigger on a black Cap? Even if he does, this is not a character that you can change the race on without ignoring the implications of that change. Feige says in that article that he has no interest in adapting Truth into a film, and yet, a film about a black superhero in the 1940s practically demands that race be addressed on some level – especially when that character is supposed to represent America.

If Captain America had the backing of a maverick filmmaker or superstar actor, one who would fight for his vision and have the clout to back it up, then I’d be willing to seriously entertain the notion. But it doesn’t (yet), and as we saw with The Incredible Hulk, Marvel Studios seems to be the controlling type. I don’t see Will Smith slinging the star-spangled shield unless Marvel Studios is truly willing to make a film that addresses what it meant to be a black man in the America of the 1930s and 40s. I’m not convinced they’re willing to make that kind of commitment, and if they’re not gonna take that approach with Smith as Cap, then it’s not worth doing at all. I’d rather see Leonardo DiCaprio as Cap.