Marvel Studios announced today that Oscar-winning actor Tommy Lee Jones will play Colonel Chester Phillips in Joe Johnston’s Captain America: The First Avenger.  Jones will join a cast that includes Chris Evans, Hugo Weaving, Hayley Atwell, Sebastian Stan and Stanley Tucci in the Marvel Studios production that will debut on July 22nd, 2011.

It was actress Hayley Atwell who first leaked the news that Jones would be appearing in the Captain America film (see “Tommy Lee Jones in Cap”) back in May, but the role that the Oscar-winner would be playing was not revealed.  It turns out that it will be a key one.  In the Captain America continuity it was Colonel Phillips who recruited Steve Rogers for Project Rebirth, the secret experiment that created the Super Soldier who became known as Captain America.