Marvel’s Ant-Man has been revealed. A couple of days ago, we got our first look at footage from the upcoming superhero film in the first teaser trailer. While the cut was unexpectedly pretty serious, and admittedly a bit underwhelming, Marvel is quite simply one of the most popular brands around, so interest in Ant-Man is high nevertheless. In this week’s EW cover story, a few new Ant-Man images have been revealed alongside some candid and revealing quotes from the cast and crew about the tumultuous road to production. Evangeline Lilly, in particular, had yet to sign her contract when director Edgar Wright departed over creative differences, and she refused to sign until she saw the new, completed script, adding “I got held off for months. Marvel knew [that first revised screenplay] wasn’t good. They just knew it was in the direction they wanted.”
All’s well that ends well, we hope. After the jump, check out the new Ant-Man images as well as more quotes from the cast, including some rather revealing plot details about Marvel’s latest adventure. The film opens in theaters on July 17th.
We also learned this week that the official screenplay credits for Ant-Man grant star Paul Rudd and Adam McKay “screenplay by” status while Wright and his co-write Joe Cornish are given “story by” credits, and in the EW piece, Rudd insists the foundation of the film remains the one originated by Wright and Cornish:
“The bones of it is really Edgar and Joe. It’s been an emotional roller coaster, but I’m very excited now.”
Rudd added that he was “devastated” when Wright left the film, and while it’s clear from Lilly’s comments that Marvel’s first attempt at a rewrite was a failure (indeed, that rewritten script was what finally led to Wright’s departure, as it was clear he and Marvel weren’t going to get on the same page), it sounds like Rudd and McKay were able to move the film in Marvel’s direction without sacrificing quality.
And so here with are with a new version of Ant-Man directed by Peyton Reed, and EW has the details on the opening sequence that sets the story in motion:
When we first meet Lang, he is in prison for stealing from the CEO of a company that was itself stealing from its employees. “There’s a prison fight and you’ve got to buy Paul in that role,” says Reed. Lang longs to go straight—he has a young daughter he wants to build a relationship with—but when he leaves the big house, he ends up nabbing Pym’s Ant-Man suit. Was he set up? “There might be stuff going on that Scott doesn’t know about that’s a lot bigger than him,” Reed says.
Lang is then trained by Michael Douglas’ Hank Pym in an effort to thwart Pym’s former protégé Darren Cross (Corey Stoll), who has developed his own version of the Ant-Man technology resulting in the Yellowjacket suit. The heist at the center of Ant-Man involves stealing said Yellowjacket suit.
As for how the action sequences for the tiny hero (and villain) are filmed, the production used a mix of macro photography (ie. cameras that can film very small things) and motion-capture technology, the latter of which found Rudd and Stoll recording movements that will then be used to bring Ant-Man and Yellowjacket to life.
While I was fairly underwhelmed by the trailer, I don’t really believe the finished film will be that somber. This is Marvel, after all. Anyway, check out the rest of the new Ant-Man images below, via EW.
