As the individual members of 'The Avengers' prepare for their next standalone projects, plenty of cast rosters have been highly in flux. The biggest shakeups appear to be over at 'Captain America: The Winter Soldier.' We have heard that Hugo Weaving will not be returning as The Red Skull nor will Hayley Atwell reprise her role as Peggy Carter. The latter was not terribly surprising as her character is not involved in the 'Winter Soldier' story arc, but the Red Skull turnover could cause problems. Well one name it appears we can etch into the cast list for the sequel is that of Toby Jones. Jones played Red Skull's chief scientist Arnim Zola who assisted him with building his Tesseract-powered death ray. During a recent interview, while on the red carpet of the Critic's Circle Awards, Jones revealed his return (right at the end)...

At first glance, it may seem like underwhelming news that Jones will be coming back for the sequel, but there are a couple of circumstances to bear in mind here. First, if Weaving is really gone, and the producers decide to strike him from the story rather than recast, a new principle villain will be needed. It seems reasonable to assume that they will want to expand upon a character they've already at least somewhat established in the first film rather than introduce a host of new antagonist characters that could potentially shift focus from the titular villain. Also, the Arnim Zola of the comics ends up transferring his consciousness into a giant robot body; something unexplored in Joe Johnston's first outing. If there comes a need to make Jones' character a more prominent villain, could we see this more visually elaborate version of Zola? This is all speculation for now, but the fact that not one peep has been made about Marvel's attempts to recast Red Skull, coupled with Jones' return as Zola, do raise some questions.

What do you guys think? Happy that Jones is returning? Do you think they'll make him the chief baddie or recast Red Skull? Or neither?

Source: Hey You Guys