Drive-by movie news: Capt. America, Star Trek, Potter, Wonder Woman, Magneto, Temeraire

ILM vet to direct Captain America movie. Marvel has signed Joe Johnston (Hidalgo, The Rocketeer) to helm The First Avenger: Captain America. Johnston got his start as an effects illustrator and designer on Star Wars, and also worked on ESB, ROTJ, Raiders, Temple of Doom, Willow, and Young Indy.

Peter Jackson speaks

In an interview with AICN, Peter Jackson talks about the limbo that is The Hobbit. Guess what? He heard the latest rumors on the internet, along with everyone else. More hopeful is the first part of the interview, where he talks about the Temeraire books. He even mentions Star Wars and franchise-building:

What I love about what George Lucas has done with STAR WARS, which I think is really cool, is that you have the movies and the movies, obviously, are the flagships of the saga, of the storytelling, but you have the comic books and the novels and everything that fills out what happens inbetween the films and what happens in other places while the films are occurring. I love that expansion of the world. This is, to me, has also got the same possibilities. The movies can be the epics and there can be other forms of entertainment that can be running alongside the movies, expanding the world of the books and the story.

Meanwhile, they’re casting for Hobbits in London. Thanks to Yav for the links!