Captain America: The Winter Soldier

This Guy: Just Wants to Direct

Hey all you actors out there, don’t you just hate it when you land a major role in one of the most profitable movie franchises of all time, and the studio just wants you to keep making movie after movie while paying you millions upon millions of dollars?

No? You don’t hate that? You’d be thrilled to land a role in anything that will pay the rent and give you a break from working at P.F. Chang’s?

Well then, I guess you and Chris Evans aren’t quite on the same page. You see, Evans is getting tired of having to play Captain America in all these extremely successful Marvel movies. What he really wants to do is direct. So as soon as his six-picture deal with Marvel Studios is up, he’s out of there. No more Steve Rogers, no more Cap.

What does that mean? Well, given that he’s already done two stand-alone Captain America flicks and the first Avengers, in all likelihood that leaves just Captain America 3, Avengers 2 and Avengers 3.

Evans recently sat down for an interview with GQ—which I’m sure would have happened if he had never taken the role of Captain America—to share his thoughts about his deal with Marvel. Here are a few of them:

Initially, it was a nine-movie contract. And they said, if these movies take off and do very well, and my life changes and I don’t respond well, I don’t have the opportunity to say, listen, I need a f–king break. That just scared me.

They called back and they tweaked the deal. It went from nine [films] to six. I said no again. My family was even going, ‘Are you sure you’re making the right decisions?’ It started to feel like maybe this is what I’m supposed to do.

…

I’ve known for a while I wanted to direct. But (time) never really opens up. There’s another movie to do, there’s another acting job. It just got to a point where I was like, you know what — I have to do this… If I’m acting at all, it’s going to be under Marvel contract, or I’m going to be directing. I can’t see myself pursuing acting strictly outside of what I’m contractually obligated to do.

Hey, we all have to make tough choices, right? Hang in there, Chris. You’ll get through this.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier hits theaters April 4, 2014.

'Captain America 3':Too soon?

Captain America was a surprise hit for Marvel, and old Cap is a huge part of The Avengers, which was the highest-grossing super hero movie of all-time until Iron Man 3 came along. So yes, it’s a pretty safe bet that Captain America: The Winter Soldier is going to be a success. Still, you never want to put the cart before the horse. Marvel is still going to wait to make sure the sequel succeeds before giving the official green light to Captain America 3.

In the meantime, however, they’ve just gone and secured their star, found a producer, hammered out a story arc, and nailed down a director. You know, just minor details.

According to Variety, a “source” has confirmed that Winter Soldier directors Anthony and Joe Russo will be back in the directors chair (there may be two of them, but they only get one chair) for the third installment of the franchise. And together with Marvel execs they’ve already outlined the basic plot of the third film.

Why the rush when there’s still so much time before Captain America 2 comes out? Apparently the studio execs are just thrilled with the Russo brothers’ work and the movie is doing well at test screenings, so they want to get the key ingredients for the third film locked into place right away.

Meanwhile, over at Disney, J.J. Abrams hopes to have a final decision on which plastic cups they’ll use for water at auditions for the role of Storm Trooper #35 some time week.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier hits theaters April 4.