Fantasy Island arrives in UK cinemas on March 6th (it's out in the US on Valentine's Day) and we recently had the opportunity to talk to star Michael Peña about his role as Mr. Rourke.
We'll be bringing you that interview next month but, in the meantime, we have some comments from the actor about his role as the fan-favourite Luis in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Introduced in 2015's
Ant-Man, he stole the show in both that and
Ant-Man and The Wasp, and fans are anxious to see Peña reprise the role, especially after he was M.I.A. in the last two
Avengers movies.
After confirming in a separate interview that he hopes to reprise the role of Luis when
Ant-Man 3 starts shooting next year, we quizzed the
Fantasy Island star on whether he's hoping to suit up, how he feels about missing out on the fight against Thanos, and his thoughts on Marvel's Disney+ plans.
Here are those excerpts:
With a lot of supporting characters in the MCU now stepping up, do you think we could see Luis suiting up alongside Scott, Hope and Cassie in Ant-Man 3 and is that something you would like to see?
"That was the whole second movie where I was begging for a suit and then he said no, so it was 'How about a suit with limited powers?' and he said no, so I said, 'How about a suit with no powers?' and they said no again, so I think it's a "no" so far! But, you never know with these guys. Most of the actors don't know what's going to come about and what's going to happen in these movies. If we did, we would all be Kevin Feiges, you know?"
Were you disappointed not to be part of Infinity War and Endgame or were you told early on that Luis was one of Thanos' victims?
"No, I'm kind of happy with where I was, you know? We were part of Ant-Man, the original one, where no one had really heard of that character and I was able to create, alongside with the help of Marvel, another character I've really enjoyed playing. That one was really tough as well because I don't normally speak that quickly or with that high-pitched accent so that one was quite a challenge. For Fantasy Island, and that one, there was a little bit of nervousness as there was quite a bit expected from it and a lot of it was put out by me."
Later on in the interview, I asked Michael about the possibility of Fantasy Island continuing on the small screen and after explaining that television isn't necessarily something that interests him, I asked whether that means he would pass on starring in one of Marvel's planned Disney+ TV shows.
"I don't know. I have no idea, but I would like to keep on doing movies. I think they're doing eight episodes, am I not correct?"
Yeah, the plan is for them to feel like movies, I believe.
"That would be different. On network television, they do like 22 episodes and it's like a week and a half on each which is different than four weeks. Over four weeks, you're doing two episodes in one month but it's not like you're spending two weeks on one episode as you have two different crews filming at the same time so, in essence, you are doing an episode per months and that's the difference. You can spend a lot of time with those 120 pages."
So, it sounds like he would be open to bringing Luis to the small screen, but only if it has the same big screen feel as a series like Narcos: Mexico.
Peña has clearly spent a lot of time becoming a movie star, so it's understandable that it's a realm he would now like to remain in, but Marvel Studios TV shows are going to have huge budgets and a big screen feel so they might change his mind.
Be sure to check back here the week beginning March 2nd for our full interview with Michael as well as Fantasy Island director Jeff Wadlow and stars Lucy Hale and Maggie Q.