The cast is filling up quickly for Marvel’s upcoming take on Ant-Man. Director Edgar Wright has already cast Paul Rudd as the film’s lead Scott Lang with Michael Douglas taking on the role of Ant-Man creator Hank Pym, and we recently learned that Michael Pena is also in talks to join the pic. Now Variety reports that Lost actress Evangeline Lilly is in early talks to play the female lead in the comic book adaptation, and pre-production rolls along ahead of an April production start-date. Hit the jump for more, including the non-canon role that Lilly might be playing.
Plot details on Ant-Man are being kept firmly under wraps, but as evidenced by the fact that the film features both Pym and Lang in the same story, Wright appears to be mixing things up a bit. To that end, Variety reports that some sources are saying Lilly would play Lang’s love interest, who also happens to be the daughter of Hank Pym—a character that doesn’t exist in comics lore. Wright penned the screenplay alongside Joe Cornish (Attack the Block), and if the female lead is indeed Pym’s daughter, that would provide a nice bit of connective tissue from the new Ant-Man to the originator of the superhero. Moreover, THR adds that Lilly’s role is not intended to be a one-off, meaning she would very likely recur in further Marvel movies.
Lilly first gained notice as Kate on ABC’s Lost before landing solid if smaller roles in films like The Hurt Locker and Real Steel. Recently, however, the actress turned heads as Tauriel in the sequel The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, impressing even skeptics who were wary about a non-canon character appearing in Peter Jackson’s adaptation of the J.R.R. Tolkein novel. Lilly brought a solid mix of tenderness and fierce independence to that role, and one imagines she’d fare extremely well in the Marvel universe under the guidance of such a talented a filmmaker light Wright.
Production on Ant-Man begins in April in Atlanta, but Lilly will next be seen onscreen reprising her role as Tauriel in The Hobbit: There and Back Again this December. Ant-Man is slated for release on July 17, 2015.
