Captain America 4 Will Be Directed By Cloverfield Paradox Filmmaker Julius Onah
It's been over a year since Marvel first announced that "Captain America 4" is a go, and today the project has finally landed a director. The Hollywood Reporter is reporting that Julius Onah ("The Cloverfield Paradox") will be helming the first post-"Avengers: Endgame" entry into the popular Captain America series.
As established in the Disney+ series "Falcon and the Winter Soldier," Anthony Mackie's Sam Wilson will take up the mantle of the patriotic superhero after Chris Evans' Steve Rogers got his happy ending in the 2019 Avengers film. The series dug into some of Sam's hesitations over representing a country that has a history of anti-Black sentiments, and touched on topics like medical racism and the ethics (or lack thereof) of the military industrial complex. By the show's end, Sam had accepted the role of Captain America, ushering in a new era of post-Avengers heroes.
Sam Wilson is Captain America
Onah joins a team that so far includes writers Marcus Spellman and Dalan Musson, who have been attached to the project since it was announced in 2021. The filmmaker directed the 2018 surprise sequel "The Cloverfield Paradox," a space-set film that surprised audiences by debuting on Netflix directly after that year's Super Bowl with no fanfare before that day. Despite the disappointing nature of that movie, Onah also co-wrote and directed "Luce," a thought-provoking 2019 thriller starring Kelvin Harrison Jr, Octavia Spencer, Naomi Watts, and Tim Roth that was much better reviewed and received by audiences.
Spellman and Musson both worked on "The Falcon and the Winter Soldier," where Spellman served as head writer and Musson was a staff writer. While the Marvel series was one of Musson's first writing credits, Spellman has also worked in the writers' rooms on the TV shows "Bel-Air" and "Empire." Exactly zero details are immediately available about the new "Captain America" film, including supporting cast information, plot details, or even a title. However, Mackie has touched upon his ideas for the character moving forward, telling ComicBook.com that "this new Cap is Rocky" and saying that "he's going to be the underdog in any situation."
This announcement comes during a time in which the massive company is finally starting to bring their future plans into focus: Marvel is set to make its long-awaited return to Comic-Con this month, and will surely reveal details about upcoming projects when they hit Hall H. The release of "Thor: Love and Thunder" also seems to mark a bit of a turning point for the franchise, as the new movie features an end credits scene that could hint at a new direction for Marvel's future.