EXCLUSIVE: With Chris Evans now locked and loaded as Captain America, momentum is building to cast the property's female lead.

Marvel has been heavily courting Emily Blunt to play the main character's girlfriend, reported previously as Peggy Carter. The studio, sources say, has made an offer to Blunt and wants her for the part -- but expect someone else to wind up in the role in the end.

Blunt, the Golden Globe winner and star of this award season's "The Young Victoria," brings with her a British and European following -- key if you're trying to convince global audiences to see a patriotic hero named Captain America (if only Marion Cotillard was available). She's also seen as someone who can give the franchise a prestige gloss. Casting her would be a move not unlike Marvel's coup in setting Robert Downey Jr. in "Iron Man," lending some serious acting cachet to a superhero franchise (and lord knows Chris Evans isn't going to achieve that here).

But according to sources, Blunt is close to signing on to other projects and will turn down Marvel's offer. That leaves the studio to decide between several other people on its short list, including Keira Knightley and Alice Eve -- both of whom, not coincidentally given the film's global designs, also come with British bona fides. [UPDATED, 1:24 PM -- Sources now confirm that Blunt has officially passed. There will be no Victorian charm amid the dueling WWII-era superheroes.]

Casting a female lead in most superhero films is in many ways harder than nabbing the male one. You have the luxury (or necessity) of using the part to expand the prospective audience. But you also have the tough job of convincing the person who can provide the expansion that playing the girlfriend in an effects-heavy blockbuster is something that's worth their time.

It might be wiser to go the Bond Girl route and cast, say, a lesser-known but still rising star (Gemma Arterton, also British, comes to mind) and create a buzz that way, instead of going with a widely known quantity ... although we have to admit that watching an award-winning prestige actress play the part would  be interesting, to say the least.

-- Steven Zeitchik

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Photo: Emily Blunt in "The Young Victoria." Credit: Apparition

After seeing more jockeying and machinations than the health-care debate, Marvel has all but sealed a deal for Chris Evans to play Captain America. Most bloggers and journos are writing up the casting of the Fantastic Four actor as " 'Human Torch' gets cast as leading man," which we suppose is a slightly more diplomatic version of what many really wanted to say: "At least he's not Channing Tatum."

The interesting subtext here is that Marvel seems to be taking a step away from the recent trend in superhero casting. For a good chunk of the current comic-book renaissance, casting a lead role was about taking a hunky young unknown and seeing if he can act (like Brandon Routh, who it turned out couldn't, or Hugh Jackman, who could).

But more recently it's been about taking actors and seeing if they can play superhero (an experiment that for the most past has worked -- see under: Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man and Christian Bale as Batman). Evans marks a return to the lesser-known-hottie approach (literally -- the guy is credited as "Harvard Hottie" in the big-screen version of "The Nanny Diaries"). In fact, almost every one of the actors on the studio's short list, save perhaps for John Krasinski, is the chiseled, stone-faced type (the type formerly known as evincing modest acting skills and facial expression).

That's an approach that brings in a certain kind of younger female fan. But Captain America is a role that requires acting and comedy chops. As envisioned in the script, at least according to what we've been hearing, the title character isn't the unvarnished hero of the original WWII comic; he's a more marginalized type who's dissed a bit for his ingenue patriotism. Evans has a few substantive roles under his belt, including the indie "Loss of a Teardrop Diamond." Let's hope his turn here doesn't make us cry.

-- Steven Zeitchik

Photo: Chris Evans with Dakota Fanning in "Push." Credit: Hirotake Okazaki / Summit Entertainment