Now this is a curveball. Since the era of the tentpole movie came about, legendary star Robert Redford has mostly stayed clear of them. Of course he’s starred in blockbusters, but they were back in the day, when men were men and blockbusters were movies like “The Sting” and “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” and “A Bridge Too Far.” These days, Redford tends to appear in his own work when he acts, and the closest he’s come to taking a big studio paycheck in the last decade was voicing a horse in “Charlotte’s Web.”
So we’re as surprised as you to learn, via Deadline, that the actor has entered talks to join the cast of upcoming Marvel sequel “Captain America: The Winter Soldier.” According to the site, the actor would play a senior member of secret organization S.H.I.E.L.D., a part that, as tends to be the case with these films, could figure into future Marvel movies. So would he be Nick Fury’s superior? Something else entirely? Is there a character in the comics that this would relate to? (Wikipedia indicates that first S.H.I.E.L.D. director Colonel Rick Stoner could be a possibility, or maybe even an older version of Dum Dum Dugan, as played by Neal McDonough in the first “Captain America” movie.)
Either way, it’s interesting to see Redford take on a part like this. Will this help pay for the next few years of Sundance? Or does he just want to make something for the grandkids? Either way, we imagine more details will emerge soon as the film gets closer to shooting. Redford would join Chris Evans, Sebastian Stan, Anthony Mackie, Frank Grillo, Cobie Smulders, Samuel L. Jackson and Scarlett Johansson in the film, while Joe and Anthony Russo are directing. The film hits theaters in just over a year on April 4, 2014, and filming should get underway very soon. Meanwhile, you can next see Redford in his directorial effort “The Company You Keep,” which opens on April 5th.