The psychotic mercenary cat may have been let out of the bag last week already, when The Grey actor Frank Grillo took to twitter to announce his screen test for the role of one of the villains in Captain America: The Winter Soldier (those tweets have since been deleted, by the way), but now it’s been made official: Grillo will be donning the skulled mask as the sadistic Crossbones in the superhero sequel.
And he’s bringing a couple of familiar faces with him.
Variety broke the official news this morning about Grillo’s official casting as Brock Rumlow aka Crossbones, a character that’s been around since the 1980’s, but who really hit the limelight in writer Ed Brubaker’s 2007 – present run, where the highly trained mercenary became the right hand man of Sin, daughter of the Red Skull and was also heavily involved in that story arc’s defining moment, the assassination of Steve Rogers aka Captain America. It was also during this same run that the Winter Soldier – Cap’s ex-sidekick turned amnesiac Russian cyborg assassin Bucky Barnes – was first introduced.
Hot on the heels of that story, Variety also broke the news that the film’s already large cast just got even larger, as Samuel L Jackson, Scarlett Johannson and Cobie Smulders will be reprising their Avengers roles as Head of SHIELD Nick Fury, SHIELD Agent Maria Hill and Avenger Black Widow, respectively. Black Widow was always sort of expected, based on the fact that she and Bucky have quite a bit of history together in the comics, but it’s uncertain whether or not these will just be glorified cameos or if they will actually be integral to the plot.
With Captain America (Chris Evans), Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), Falcon (Anthony Mackie), Cap’s love interest (possibly Mary Elizabeth Winstead), one more “physical” villain role (still uncast) and now the addition of Crossbone, Nick Fury, Maria Hill and Black Widow, this cast is getting so large that I will not be surprised to see Speedball being added any day now.
Last Updated: October 30, 2012
