As its cinematic universe continues to expand, Marvel continues to dig deeper into their well of characters. While we already have the weird “Guardians Of The Galaxy” from James Gunn to look forward to, it seems the studio is going full-on esoteric a little early for “Captain America: The Winter Soldier.”
Latino Review is reporting that French mercenary and savate — a French form of kickboxing — master Batroc the Leaper will
make an appearance in the “Captain America” sequel and, in keeping with
Hollywood’s obsession with mixed martial arts, French-Canadian MMA and current UFC
Welterweight Champion Georges St-Pierre is cast as the villainous Frenchman.
Since Frank Grillo is already confirmed as being Crossbones, the major villain of the 2014 sequel, we’re assuming Batroc will be his lead henchman and not a full-on big bad, so it’s probably a level of role roughly equivalent to Bane in “Batman & Robin.” If speculation that “Revenge” actress Emily Van Der Camp is playing Sharon Carter (the niece of Hayley Atwell’s
Peggy Carter from the first film) turns out to be correct, then it makes
a certain degree of sense since an early storyline from the comics
saw Batroc abduct Sharon Carter for HYDRA. Guess we’ll have to wait and
see.
While this news doesn’t exactly raise the heartbeat for us, we do kind of enjoy that a guy like St-Pierre can join the film only a few days after screen legend Robert Redford signed on, and word is that his character, a S.H.I.E.L.D. higher-up, is named Pierce, which doesn’t seem to sync up with a pre-existing character. So either it’s all an elaborate cover to hide the fact that Redford is playing She-Hulk, or it’s a new character. Either way, “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” hits theaters next year on April 4th.
Done right, Batroc could be the same kind of badass as Bane was in Dark Knight Rises.