Cast-Off! Who Should Play Captain America?

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As we reported earlier this week, Marvel’s live action Captain America movie, First Avenger: Captain America has found a director in Joe Johnston. Slated for release in May of 2011, the film will be a World War II era story, which will retell Captain America’s origin, and see the lead character turn from scrawny Army reject Steve Rogers to the flag-wearing, shield-slinging American hero.

One problem though – the film may be two and a half years away, true, but there’s still no Captain America.

Sure, rumors have started, spread, and been squashed (see Will Smith), but there’s been no real word on who should play Captain America in the solo film, and more than likely, appear with Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), and Thor (yet uncast) in the coming Avengers film which is slated to open in theaters on July 15th, 2011.

One quick sidenote – the close release dates of First Avenger: Captain America and The Avengers may give us our best hint of what The Avengers will be about. Practically speaking, if Captain America will be appearing in the entire film version of The Avengers, the actor will have to be filming two movies simultaneously, or very much back to back. We’re not saying that can’t be done, but as Marvel fans know, an authentic first Avengers film could quite logically end with the discovery of Captain America’s body frozen in ice.

But we digress.

Back to the point at hand - who should play Captain America.

Sure, we could talk to “insiders” and get all analytical, but why bother with that stuff when mob rule is so much more fun?

So who do you think should play Captain America in the upcoming movie? Seriously – we want to boil things down to “Newsarama thinks _________ should play Captain America.” And we want your help.

We want to hear who you think should play Captain America on the big screen, and want to hear it in the messages below. We’re not looking for huge discussions on the merits of the suggestions, but rather, suggestions and votes of yay or nay. That is, in the responses below, tell us who you think should play Cap, and maybe add a few words as to why if you’re looking to sway others to your cause.

Some ideas that we’ve had floating around the office:

(and please note – just because we used their pictures, this is not a vote off between Brad Pitt and Nathan Fillion...we just kind of got lost in their eyes as we searched for images...)

Brad Pitt – come on – he is Mr. All America
Aaron Eckhart – jaws don’t get much squarer
Kevin McKidd – Scottish, but still...
Matt Damon – Take Bourne, add costume
Nathan Fillion – WWII chops from Saving Private Ryan, genre chops from Serenity, Dr. Horrible and the upcoming Wonder Woman animated DVD.
Ryan McPartlin – “Captain Awesome” on Chuck
Cole Hauser – total dark horse candidate

All of ours clearly have their pros and cons...so what are yours?

We’ll keep things running until next Monday night, when we’ll call it a day and start counting. We’ll be back next Wednesday for your top three, and we’ll boil it down from there to who Newsarama readers think should play Captain America.

So let’s hear it.