Captain America is a rather ubiquitous figure these days, even though Captain America: The First Avenger doesn’t open in movie theaters until July 22. Directed by Joe Johnston, the film stars Chris Evans as Steve Rogers (a.k.a. Captain America) and Hugo Weaving as his nemesis The Red Skull.
Yesterday, Big Shiny Robot! shared the information that the classic Captain America costume appears in the film, and today Playbill brings us the news that composers Alan Menken and David Zippel have written a song for the highly anticipated Marvel film.
The composers have also written for Broadway, which may draw some vague comparisons between the song for Captain America and the music for another production based on a Marvel supehero: Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark. However, this is just one song for a film as opposed to a train wreck of a bloated and controversial Broadway musical.
This is also not Captain America’s first brush with Broadway. In 1985, a $4 million musical was announced but never actually materialized. The plot focused on the hero’s mid-life crisis and the rescue of his girlfriend from terrorists. I’m not sure where his “very special friend” would have fit into the plot, but a casting call searching for girls aged 10-14 can be seen in the picture below:
The song Menken and Zippel penned for Captain America is called “The Star-Spangled Man (With a Plan)” and will be hear during a movie montage. Ah, the movie montage. These tend to either be long and boring or incredibly entertaining, so let’s just hope it’s the latter.
In the Playbill article, Zippel explains that the song takes place in the film before Steve Rogers becomes Captain America. He appears at war bond presentations throughout the country.
Alan Menken is perhaps best known for his work on Disney films. He and Zippel received an Academy Award for their song “Go the Distance” from Hercules. Menken also won Academy Awards for Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, and Pocahontas. His most recent projects include adapting the film Newsies for Broadway, composing the music for last year’s Tangled, and working on Broadway productions of Aladdin and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. These follow a pattern of Disney animated films turned into musicals for the stage.
In addition to Hercules, David Zippel has worked on the Disney films Mulan and Tarzan and wrote the lyrics for the Tony Award-winning musical City of Angels. It was his first full-length musical and his most successful.
Captain America: The First Avenger opens in theaters next month.