When people say Captain America today they almost certainly think of the decade long tenure of Chris Evans, from Captain America: First Avenger to Avengers: Endgame (and maybe beyond), but the original movie adaptation actually happened in the 90s, produced by none other than Cannon Films head noncho Mehahem Golan, staring Matt Selinger (yes, the son of the writer J.D. Salinger) and was directed by the WM Crew old favorite Albert Pyun ( The Sword and the Sorcerer, Cyborg & Nemesis).
Famously troubled production was started in ’89 by Cannon Films and continued by 21 Century Films (when Golan exited Cannon Films). Because of the budgetary concerns filming was moved to Yugoslavia (Jadran Film Studios, Zagreb & Dubrovnik) from the originally planed Italian location. In fact the budget got so thin at times that Pyun was supposedly forced to fake a full day of shooting without any film in camera (because they couldn’t afford any) just to keep the morale of the crew up! Man, what a trooper!
Plot was changed from the comics to include the Italian child prodigy becoming a Red Skull (made in an super- solder experiment mirroring one of Steve Rogers). Then we would get a version of classic Captain America sacrifice that ends with him frozen in ice for decades just to reappear in time to stop the Red Skull (now crime boss) from kidnapping the President of the USA.
When the movie first came out in 1990 it was met with overwhelmingly negative reactions and it didn’t even get a theatrical release in US. VHS release did fare better (and the movie did start gaining a bit of a cult status as the years went by).
But in reality Pyun had a much different, more mature and experimental vision for the movie, vision that as it often happens was compromised to keep the studio happy. Only he could never really let go of it and up to his last days he always carried the four original film reels with him wherever he went. It took him a long time to get reels digitalize and he unfortunately didn’t live to see the revival of his vision fulfilled. Well, until now.
Surprisingly over the weekend there were some rumbling of a surprise screening on Twitch that turned out to be the Original Cut of Pyun’s Captain America! And the reactions are overwhelmingly positive!
Movie is said to be a completely different animal than the released version- a 70s style paranoid thriller with a very melancholic mood, sharp contrast to the goofy action version we got. It seems in some ways Pyun was trying to do a Winter Soldier before the Winter Soldier (albeit on a shoestring budget of just 3 million dollars).
Now, I’m sure the Evil Disney Corporation will consider blocking this from ever being released but after all this time and effort I think the director deserves to have his vision seen, especially now when he’s no longer with us.
Worsemovies 