1979 CAPTAIN AMERICA director says movie was so bad he was lucky to get another job in Hollywood

Decades before the name Captain America was synonymous with the actor Chris Evans, and the MCU hadn’t even been conceived yet, the world actually got a chance to be introduced to the superhero via film, but that was a pretty bad rendering. The 1979 television movie Captain America it was a ridiculous take on the origin story we all know and love. The actor played Reb Brown as Steve Rogers, the titular hero, and it was as cheesy and generic as an 80s TV movie could be.

Director, Rod Holcombhe was a newcomer to the scene when he landed the gig, having only directed a few episodes of the two series THE The Six Million Dollar Man AND American girls previously. He didn’t have a clear vision, or really any input during the making of the film, and still considers it a disappointing experience. He explained in an interview:

“I did a terrible job on this. It was badly directed, it was badly written, it was badly shot, it was badly acted, it was badly edited, they were talking about trying to fire me and the studio at the time, you know, because I had worked with them, I said, “No, let’s not bust this guy. We let you know,” and CBS wanted me off the show. And oh god it went on and on and on… I failed, crying at night. It was devastating, people wanted to fire me, I never did I shot it for the studio, I shot it for the net, I shot it for my friend who gave me the job. I once took a frame for myself. Never a frame for myself.”

The director explained that luckily, the networks didn’t discount him moving forward as a director based on this project, and CBS gave him another chance to work again. Holcomb would go on to a long and fruitful career directing episodes of series like the original Battlestar Galactica, Fantasy Island, ER, West WingAND Lost.

And not only did Holcomb manage to get ahead in Hollywood, but for some reason, despite the film’s failure, Universal released a sequel to Captain America the same year, titled Captain America II: Death Too Soonthis time directed by Ivan Nagi.

Via: /Movies