Following last week’s news that Chris Evans is the new Captain America for the upcoming bajillion Marvel movies, THR reports that Sebastian Stan has nabbed the role of Cap’s ill-fated sidekick, Bucky Barnes. Stan’s deal is for five or six movies, indicating that Bucky’s movie trajectory could follow his comic book one. In the comics, young Bucky apparently dies on Captain America’s final mission in World War II, only to return decades later as the Winter Soldier, a hardened assassin with a metal arm. More recent adventures in the comics have Bucky actually taking over the mantle of Captain America after Steve Rogers’s death and subsequent return to life.
Sebastian Stan, at 26, is around a decade older than Bucky would have been during World War II. Nevertheless, he has a young look and should work well in the part, as well as in the inevitable sequels and spinoffs. Stan played the son of Ian McShane’s King Silas in the NBC series Kings, has appeared on Gossip Girl, and currently is in Hot Tub Time Machine.
