Kevin Feige Talks About The Red Skull In Captain America: The First Avenger

The 1990 version of Captain America is, by all accounts, a horrible movie. Made on a shoestring budget, there isn't a damn thing in the movie that works effectively. Counted amongst these sins is the films treatment of The Red Skull, one of Marvel's classic villains who was reduced to a bad German accent and a Halloween mask. It will be quite hard for Joe Johnston's upcoming adaptation, with Hugo Weaving in the role, to do any worse, but Marvel President Kevin Feige is here to raise our expectations.

Total Film recently sat down with Feige to discuss the upcoming films on Marvel's slate, and, in addition to talking about filming in the UK (most of the movie takes place in Europe, after all), he also talked about Hugo Weaving in the role of the villain, saying,

Hugo Weaving has been in the Red Skull effect, in costume for a couple of weeks now and it’s a hell of a lot of fun. We gave people a little taste in San Diego about what his character will look like but now that we’ve started to work with the actual skull it’s going to be a lot of fun and a rather frightening villain.

Many are going to call foul at the fact that the Red Skull is a CGI effect, but I'm choosing to hold my tongue until I see the result. In the comics, Hitler gives Johann Schmidt an actual mask to wear, and if the CGI makes it look in any way artificial it will be a detriment. That said, the further we get away from this the better.

Eric Eisenberg
Assistant Managing Editor

Eric Eisenberg is the Assistant Managing Editor at CinemaBlend. After graduating Boston University and earning a bachelor’s degree in journalism, he took a part-time job as a staff writer for CinemaBlend, and after six months was offered the opportunity to move to Los Angeles and take on a newly created West Coast Editor position. Over a decade later, he's continuing to advance his interests and expertise. In addition to conducting filmmaker interviews and contributing to the news and feature content of the site, Eric also oversees the Movie Reviews section, writes the the weekend box office report (published Sundays), and is the site's resident Stephen King expert. He has two King-related columns.