Frank Grillo hopes to see Brock Rumlow, a.k.a. Crossbones, return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe in his own television series. The 55-year-old actor first appeared as S.H.I.E.L.D. infiltrator Rumlow in 2014’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier, where the military man was revealed as a member of the terrorist HYDRA organization opposed by Captain America (Chris Evans), the Falcon (Anthony Mackie) and Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson). Before reprising the role during a 2012-set sequence in Avengers: Endgame, Grillo returned as a deformed Rumlow — now the masked villain codenamed Crossbones — in 2016’s Captain America: Civil War, where he was killed by his own bomb during a failed attempt to kill Captain America.
Videos by ComicBook.com
“I would love to do that just because I have never seen a character be on the screen so little and yet have such a fan following,” Grillo told Forbes about starring in his own Marvel series. “I scratch my head with it sometimes. I have a great relationship with Marvel and the guys there, but why didn’t they, even if it wasn’t with me, pursue that? Why isn’t Crossbones somewhere in the mix?”
He continued, “I think Crossbones was on screen for something like eight or 12 minutes, and you would think that this character was in 75 different movies the way every day people come up to me all day and talk about Crossbones. I’m taking pictures as if I was Captain America.”
Grillo, who next stars in action flick Boss Level, would return for such a series “in a heartbeat.”
“I would love for a meeting to help them develop it. That would be great,” Grillo said. “It’s a great character, but if it does happen, that will probably happen with somebody half my age.”
The action star — who headlined action-thrillers Wheelman and Point Blank after turns in two Purge movies — recently admitted he’s “outgrowing that whole kind-of Marvel and superhero thing,” choosing instead to pursue projects developed by Warparty, his production company created with The Grey director Joe Carnahan.
Before joining the Captain America franchise, Grillo was interested in playing gun-toting vigilante Frank Castle, the Punisher, a role eventually filled by Jon Bernthal.
“Joe and I have a really good little company in Warparty, and we’re concentrating on action thrillers that are responsibly budgeted, and we’re very busy, knock wood, and we’ll go down the path of creating our own material and content and having a good time,” Grillo told Uproxx when explaining why he no longer desires to portray the Punisher.
Marvel Studios is now developing multiple live-action television series for the Disney+ streaming service, including The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, where Mackie’s Sam Wilson is reunited with Sebastian Stan’s Bucky Barnes. The coming six-episode series is said to be tonally similar to The Winter Soldier.
