Captain Britain

Scottish poster artist Ciara McAvoy has stirred up quite a flurry of online speculation after tweeting some messages, including artwork, teasing that a ‘Captain Britain’ project of some sort is in development.  Of course, this was soon followed by the requisite “can’t reveal anything yet but hopefully I’ll be able to soon. Waiting for the go ahead from the co-producer.”

McAvoy previously worked on posters for ‘X-Men: First Class’ and ‘Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith’ and recently worked on ‘Doctor Strange’ for Marvel.  She tweeted the following image:

 

This was followed by these teasing posts:

The last post points out that indie film producer Chris Lark will serve as co-producer with Eleni.  (Just Eleni.) But is this something official?  Or just a fan-made film?  (Don’t scoff!  Some of these fan-made films and trailers are feature quality these days.) McAvoy specifically calls the project a TV series.  That doesn’t quite connect.  The ABC shows, ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ and ‘Agent Carter’ are languishing in the ratings, although ABC is going ahead with ‘Marvel’s Most Wanted’.  And the Netflix shows are all centered on more grounded, gritty characters and are all set in Hell’s Kitchen New York.  We’ve heard rumblings of Moon Knight and The Punisher possibly getting shows and those make sense.  ‘Captain Britain’… well, doesn’t. Marvel sources have since DENIED that a ‘Captain Britain’ series is in development, however, Chris Lark has since gone to Twitter to clarify it all:

 

“Ladies & Gentlemen I’m here to confirm that I and my co-prod Eleni Larchanidou are working on a Highlight Reel for a TV series based on the Marvel Comics character #CaptainBritain for 2017. Right now we are in very early stages of development for this idea and working on things like the budget for this Reel to take to Marvel for 2017 with hopes of them helping us with the series. Thank you so much for your interest in #CaptainBritain and expect more news later this year and early in 2017. Thanks so much also to @CiaraMcAvoy1 for her help with this series project too.”

Captain Britain debuted in comics in 1976, in books only published in the U.K.  He was designed as a counterpart to Captain America, although he later gained magical abilities, from ancient wizard Merlyn and his daughter Roma.  He eventually made an appearance in U.S. comics.  During the 80s, the character became slightly connected to the ‘X-Men’ when his sister Psylocke joined the team and he, himself, joined offshoot group ‘Excalibur’.

Because of his connection to the ‘X-Men’, it is possible that this is a project backed by 20th Century Fox as opposed to Marvel Entertainment.  There are currently two TV projects that Fox is developing within the ‘X-Men’ family, FX’s ‘Legion’ and FOX’s ‘Hellfire’.  ‘Legion’ appears to be chugging right along, while ‘Hellfire’ seems to have gone off track.  Will ‘Captain Britain’ be another show Fox is developing for TV?

We’ll keep you posted if we hear anything more.  But for now, what do you think?  Are you interested in a ‘Captain Britain’ TV series?  If so, what approach to the character would you like to see?