Marvel Studios is expanding their entertainment operations tenfold as they’re now producing both television and film projects, which means the studio juggles many different castings all at once.
When it was announced that former Captain America candidate Wyatt Russell would be taking the part of John Walker, aka U.S. Agent, in the Disney+ series “The Falcon & The Winter Soldier,” it seemed like a good fit. But Russell has revealed in an interview with Gold Derby that he called director “Guardians of The Galaxy” James Gunn to get his advice on the opportunity and if the character was worth playing.
Gunn seemingly had an established relationship with Russell after working together with his wife, actress wife, Meredith Hagner (“Search Party”), on the superhero horror film “Brightburn.” Gunn also worked with his father Kurt Russell on “Guardians of The Galaxy Vol.2.”
“I called James Gunn, who had become friendly with my wife [Meredith Hagner], she had worked with him on a movie [“Brightburn“]. And I trust his opinion. Obviously, he’s a great filmmaker; he’s in that world. He said, ‘if it’s the character I’m thinking of, it’s a really interesting, inherently interesting character because he has a lot of issues that you have to work through.’ So he knew a little bit about the character, which was more than my nothing,” Russell told Gold Derby.
James Gunn shed some light on Twitter about Wyatt’s call, “Wyatt is a friend and a guy I like a lot, who I met both through his dad and his wife Meredith Hagner who was in ‘Brightburn.’ He wanted to know if Walker was a cool character and if he should take the gig. My answer to both was ‘yes.'”
John Walker, of course, is selected by the U.S. government to take the Captain America mantle after Anthony Mackie‘s Sam Wilson hands over the shield before later realizing that others might not be able to handle the weight of that responsibility leading to deadly consequences he witnesses first-hand.
Without spoiling too much from the series, Wyatt Russell’s John Walker is expected to continue beyond “The Falcon & The Winter Soldier,” as teased in the final episode. He could easily join the ranks of teams such as The Dark Avengers or The Thunderbolts, depending on what studio head Kevin Feige has cooked up behind the scenes. At one point, James Gunn mused in interviews about his desire to make a Thunderbolts project for Marvel Studios before recently stating on Instagram stories that tackling “The Suicide Squad” for Warner Bros. has “scratched that itch.”