A few months ago I had the idea imaging the casting of an Avengers film, had it been made in the 80’s. Having never finished or posted my list, Screenrant beat me to it! With three of their choices being the same as mine, there didn’t seem much reason to finish. I read this around the same time as I was writing about The Paramount Decree, this gave me the idea to go a slightly different way; taking the same characters they chose, and casting them from the Golden Age of Cinema, as if the film had been made around 1940.
Clarke Gable as Tony Stark / Iron Man – Stark is charming and wisecracking; chances are he is both the funniest and the cleverest person in the room, but he is also a self obsessed dick! Who could play that better than Gable?
Burt Lancaster as Steve Rogers / Captain America Cap needs youthful good looks, a certain sense of innocence, but also needs to convey a certain melancholy. On top of all that he needs to be big and athletic. Sounds like Lancaster to me.
James Stewart as Bruce Banner / The Hulk – Banner is an awkward neurotic genius, but deep down he is good to the core. Has to be Stewart.
Johnny Weissmuller as Thor – The Austro-Hungarian-born Weissmulle doesn’t have the Norse looks that would be ideal for the part, but he certainly has the stature.
Vivien Leigh as Natasha Romanoff / Black Widow – Romanoff needs to look sweet and innocent, but be far from it, this is something Leigh did many times.
Errol Flynn as Clint Barton / Hawkeye – I don’t even need to explain this one, it has to be Flynn!
James Mason as Loki – Screenrant talk about “charming arrogance and wicked bravado” Mason has this in spades.
Gary Cooper as Phil Coulson – Coulson was the hardest character to cast because there is so much going on for so little screen time. Untimely the character is defined by his honesty and boy scout optimism, Cooper fits the bill.
Spencer Tracy as Nick Fury – The temptation is to go for a black actor to emulate Samuel L Jackson, but there simply weren’t that many prominent in that era. But Tracy certainly has the gravity and whit.
Katherine Hepburn (Maria Hill) Tall and athletic, she certainly looks the part, but she also has the whit needed. On top off all this, she has Tracy to bounce off!
Such an amazing era of cinema, there are so many great actors who didn’t make the list.
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