Dream casting: Minds Eye Entertainment announces it has obtained rights to the Captain Canuck comic book

Back in January, we heard whisperings that Canada may be getting its own superhero on the big screen. Now, Toronto-based Minds Eye Entertainment announced yesterday that it has picked up the rights to the Captain Canuck comic book from creator Richard Comley, and it’s shopping for a writer and director to bring the great Canuck to the big screen. After the jump, more about the plans to make the movie and who we’ve selected as the perfect gentlemen to play the role of our axe-wielding crusader.

Since there have been three iterations of Captain Canuck in print over the years—the original was a Mountie-turned–intelligence agent that gained alien superpowers, next was a regular Joe out to save the country from a conspiracy against the government and third was a West Coast tough guy with a vigilante attitude—we’ve yet to hear which version is making the cut, but the enthusiasm of Minds Eye Entertainment is a promising start. “I had read Captain Canuck when I was a kid growing up,” admitted David Cormican, head of development at Minds Eye, to the Toronto Star. “He’s a Canadian superhero, and when Richard contacted me, it was like a dream come true.” Writer and creator Comley said he’d love to see a Canadian play the Captain but, understandably, it is too early in the game for any stars to be attached to the project. “I think it is safe to say you can imagine all of our top leading men, and all of them will be on the list,” Comley told the Star. So, uh, does that mean Justin Bieber is still in the running? While we understand the tween box-office appeal of the Biebs, we still maintain that a more age-appropriate star would do the trick, like our favourite Ryans (Reynolds and Gosling, of course) or even Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Please?

• Captain Canuck takes flight [Toronto Star]