Readers who have been following our coverage of all things Marvel will know that amongst my very favorite films that have been adapted from a Marvel property,Peyton Reed’sAnt-Manranks very high on the list, alongside weirdly insightful, tremendously entertaining works likeIron Man 3,Sam Raimi’sSpider-Man, andGuardians of the Galaxy. The reaction to Reed’s film has been mixed for the most part, but the film, which starsPaul Ruddas Scott Lang, who becomes the titular resizable hero, made quite a lot of money. As such, a second movie was given the green light, and much of the same creative team seems to be back for the sequel,Ant-Man and the Wasp, which is currently slated for a 2018 release date, following the massiveAvengers: Infinity Wars - Part 1.
Whatever the naysayers,Ant-Manwas handed a Saturn Award this week for best comic adaptation, and it gave Reed a chance to drop a few tidbits about what we should expect fromAnt-Man and the Wasp. First, he confirmed that the film will deal directly with the aftermath ofCaptain America: Civil War, which ended with him being released from super-jail by good ol' Steve Rogers (Chris Evans). That, however, could be tricky if he makes an appearance inInfinity War - Part 1, but this is the kind of issue that the Marvel writers rooms live for, finding a way to convincingly thread all these characters into all these different storylines and adventures. Even if time travel must be utilized, it will somehow work out in the long run, I’m sure.
Speaking withModern Myth Media, he went on to talk about howEvangeline Lilly’s Wasp will figure into the new narrative. Here’s what he had to say:
“It’s something we’re excited about. For me as a comic nerd, I always thought of Ant-Man and Wasp as a team and that’s a lot of what the second movie is really about is how they work together, what their personal and professional relationships are like. To show her finally fully formed in this movie is really exciting. We really get to introduce this character into that universe. I mean we’ve introduced the character, but we haven’t seen her with her full power set and everything, so to me she’s not a supporting character in this movie. It’s every bit as much her movie as it is Scott Lang’s.”
He followed that up by discussing how he decided what parts of the comics, both in the original run, the characters' appearances in the Avengers comics, andNick Spencer’s latest run of Ant-Man. Here’s what he had to say about that:
“I’m cutting a wide swath on that stuff. I go back to early, early Avengers stuff and all the way up to the Nick Spencer stuff now. I just sort of devour it all. And really in terms of maybe even more than story stuff, just looking at imagery and for me what were iconic images and how we can squeeze those into the movie.”
Beyond that, the director commented there was a “fighting chance” that the sequel will also bring back in Lang’s gang of thieves, most prominently represented by the rapperT.I.and character actorMichael Peña. It’s also interesting to think about a film focused on a one-on-one partnership between heroes and presumable lovers, which could bring out both the more comical and dramatically rich elements of Reed’s past work. We shall see, but everything I’m hearing makes me even more impatient to see this movie that is exactly two years away from being released.
