Captain America: The First Avenger First Avenger" tells the story of Steve Rogers, a sickly man from Brooklyn who is transformed into super-soldier Captain America and must stop the Red Skull, who intends to use an artifact called the "Tesseract" as an energy-source for world domination. "Captain America: The First Avenger" began as a concept in 1997 and was scheduled for distribution by Artisan Entertainment. However, a lawsuit, not settled until September 2003, disrupted the project. In 2005, Marvel Studios received a loan from Merrill Lynch, and planned to finance and release it through Paramount Pictures. Directors Jon Favreau and Louis Leterrier were interested in
Captain America: The First Avenger in "Guardians of the Galaxy", has a brief appearance as an autograph seeker. Writer and director of "Guardians of the Galaxy" James Gunn jokingly claimed that this was Peter Quill's grandmother. Stan Lee has a cameo appearance as a general. In April 1997, Marvel was in negotiations with Mark Gordon and Gary Levinsohn to produce "Captain America", and Larry Wilson and Leslie Bohem were set to write a script. In May 2000, Marvel teamed with Artisan Entertainment to help finance the film. However, a lawsuit arose between Marvel Comics and Joe Simon over the ownership of "Captain America" copyrights, disrupting