Well...before I get into my thoughts on the recent casting announcements and reveal of the intended plot direction within this film, let's all for a second hop into a DeLorean, set the time circuits to 2004 and crank it up to 88 mph.
Ant-Man. An overlooked superhero who's film debut has taken one of the most interesting paths to finally coming to fruition. Back in 2004 before there was Iron Man, and before anyone had even dreamed of the creation of a massively shared Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), there was Ant-Man. At the time, Marvel had recently decided to begin financing their own movies. As such, there was a list of about 10 superheros they retained the film rights to, which included Ant-Man, Black Panther, The Avengers, Doctor Strange, Captain America, Hawkeye, Nick Fury and few others. Out of this list of potential properties to work from, they decided Ant-Man made the most sense to be the first, in a series films, to get the cinematic treatment. Soon after, they hired up-and-coming filmmaker Edgar Wright, fresh off his Shaun of the Dead fame, to not only direct but also write the script to Ant-Man. However, as fate would have it, during that same period of time Marvel also ran into a bit of a luck. Suddenly they found themselves in a position to reacquire the film rights to several superhero properties that were once sold to other studios, but for a myriad of reasons, whether the property fell into developmental hell or the rights lapsed, they were offered back to Marvel. Now can you guess which film rights were offered back to Marvel? I'll give you 3 guesses, the first 2 don't count. In a stroke of genius, which would take years to realize, Marvel reacquired the film rights to Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Thor and Black Widow from New Line Cinema, Universal Pictures, Sony, and Lions Gate Entertainment respectively. With these new film rights in hand, the playing field had changed overnight and the prioritization of what superhero properties were going to be focused on first vastly changed. The new focus was turned to putting out a respectable Incredible Hulk reboot and debuting the better known and more marketable Iron Man. So unfortunately, Ant-Man had thus been tossed to the backburner. It was at this point that Marvel and Edgar Wright came to a mutual agreement in which they would allow Edgar Wright to go off and additionally hone his craft by producing and directing other movies while Marvel would take a wait and see approach with how their first series of films would pan out. Obviously everyone knows the Marvel side of the story from here on out...Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk get released in 2008 and go on to be box office successes, by pure and utter happenstance John Favreau ends up creating the shared MCU with his "thrown in, easter egg" after credits scene, box office success leads to growth of the MCU, history is then made with the first shared universe team up flick in Avengers, etc...Except all news on Ant-Man goes dark. It was assumed that the once introductory film in Marvel's slate of self financed films had been canned. History shows that in these types of situations, when a movie ends up being in developmental hell for so long, the studio just cuts it's losses and moves on with a new script and a new director and goes in a completely different direction. However, this is not one of those times. Fast Forward to present day...Marvel ended up keeping their side of the deal and were apparently so impressed with Edgar Wright's original 2006 script and his overall vision for an Ant-Man film that they kept in contact with him and were still very intent on putting out "his" version of Ant-Man. Recently confirmed at Comic Con, Ant-Man, after being in a 7 plus year holding pattern, finally got the green light and a 2015 release date.
Now after dropping some Marvel history on you, here's my take on this whole thing. First off, I'm a big fan of Ant-Man and all of the great story arcs, villains and supporting hero's that come with the character. I can see why it made sense to go in the direction that Marvel went in at the time with holding back on Ant-Man in order to set up Iron Man, who was obviously way easier to market. So I don't really have any qualms with that. However, the fact it took THIS LONG to get an Ant-Man film is a travesty. The general movie audience doesn't seem to care about the vast history of comic book characters or how they're introduced on screen, so long as it's a good watch...errrr Iron Man 3...But as a person with knowledge of the vast history of these characters, it really is heartbreaking to see them presented in such a backwards way than they appear in the comics. With that said, Ant-Man(Hank Pym) was AN ORGINAL FOUNDER OF THE AVENGERS! He's an important character who's essential to the Marvel Universe. So I'd be lying if I said I wasn't massively disappointed to see him left out of the first Avengers movie. But ok, sure, I'm cool with it. There's always next time...right? RIGHT? Wrong! They left him out AGAIN! for Avengers 2. To make matters worse the villain for Avengers 2 is Ultron...really...so you're really just going to have one of the main villains of Ant-Man be the villain of an Avengers movie that Hank Pym has nothing to do with and did I mention ANTMAN CREATES ULTRON! WTF Marvel! That's strike 2. And that's a big strike. That's a Carlos Beltran 2 outs bases loaded in the 2006 NLCS kind of strike. This enrages me because Marvel will now undoubtedly change the origin of Ultron for Avengers 2, much like they changed the story of Extremis and the Mandarin in Iron Man 3...yeahhhh, I think an Iron Man 3 rant is coming down the pike sometime soon, MATE! errrrr. But that's a horrific change to the origin. Ultron is one of the biggest Avengers baddies in the comics and taking away his proper origin is a head scratcher to say to the least. By not including Hank Pym's Ant-Man in Avengers 2 you now hurt the characters rich history in a 2 pronged attack. First, you completely make the character of Hank Pym irrelevant by not making him the creator of Ultron, and what are they really going to end up doing in Avengers 2 anyway? Make him another Iron Man suit that turns evil because the plot demands it? Boooo! Like Iron Man needs to be at the forefront of another movie. Allow me to explain what makes Hank Pym essential to the Ultron story arc with a little back story. Hank Pym is a brilliant scientist who creates this machine, Ultron, and it is based off his own brain patterns. Hank is also in a relationship with Janet Van Dyne, also known as the superhero Wasp.(This information will be of use later) Ultron eventually becomes self aware and lashes out at Hank Pym. So essentially you have this story where you have a creator and his creation, and the creation contemplates his purpose and place in life as well as his identity. This is made more complicated as Ultron's whole identity is based off of Hank Pym. So although Ultron is an evil conflicted version of Pym, who wants nothing more than to destroy him and the Avengers, he also shows love and protection towards Janet. It's this kind of story that makes Ultron such a compelling character and in turn makes Ant-Man such a interesting counterpart, in that he is constantly conflicted with creating this monster. Second, you now hurt the character because you take one of the essential villains away from him, which will in the future completely change the essence of the character. By doing this it almost begs the question: Why bother even bringing Hank Pym to the big screen if you're just going to completely undo everything that makes this character Ant-Man?...more on this later.
Now on to the writer/director. Edgar Wright has always been an interesting choice for this movie. Originally just a short film and television writer/director with his biggest hit being the BBC series Spaced, he went on to gain a cult following after collaborating with his Spaced stars Simon Pegg and Nick Frost and released the highly acclaimed Shaun of the Dead. His next movie was supposed to be Ant-Man until it went on the backburner. After that he went on to complete his "Blood and Ice Cream" trilogy producing the films Hot Fuzz and recently The World's End. However, in the middle of those two films he made one notable film of interest in terms of preparing himself to eventually helm a CBM. That film was Scott Pilgrim vs. the World based on the graphic novel. Now I've heard a wide array of opinions on this movie. Some people think it's a hunk of campy styled, poorly acted, terribly written crap, while others believe it's a great adaptation of the novel and an overall highly funny and enjoyable flick. I myself tend to agree with the latter. I thoroughly enjoyed the flick and as an added bonus, years later, it's pretty funny seeing him directing the future Captain America through scenes. I'm also a big fan of his "Blood and Ice Cream" trilogy, although I do have issues with the last of the three, but what trilogy is really perfect anyways? I think the way he writes and directs dialogue in scenes mimics real life conversation to a T, and makes it incredibly easy and enjoyable to sit through a scene of nothing but dialogue. Visually, the way he sets things up in a scene and transitions from one scene to another are amazing. His use of quick moving camera actions overdubbed with sound effects in a scene can make something as trivial as writing something down on a piece of paper seem like an over the top action scene. It's this unique style of film making which makes Edgar Wright not just an interesting choice for this film, but a fantastic choice.
All of that being said is well and good, but now we get to the most recent updates on the film. This is about the point where the love fest begins to end and I start to get heated again. Now before anyone knew the details of the exact direction of the plot we got our first casting announcements. It was recently announced that Paul Rudd would indeed be cast in the title role of Ant-Man. Now my opinion on this at the time of it being announced was actually quite neutral. At the time I neither disliked nor favored the decision to cast Rudd for this type of role, especially since it had been widely rumored for months leading up to the casting. The only other name that was ever in serious contention for this role was Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who in my honest opinion would have gotten the same neutral reaction. I believe Gordon-Levitt would have done a fine job but I think he's much too young to play the role of Hank Pym, not to mention I can't quite see him passing for a brilliant scientist. Maybe it's just me...or maybe it's because of that scene from The Dark Knight Rises where he thought it'd be a brilliant idea to duck under a bus to protect himself from a nuclear blast, but at any rate I don't really believe either of these actors was 100% right for the role. However, at the time I didn't think Rudd was wrong for the role either. The reason being was that I had also heard rumors at the time that a casting was imminent on the 'Wasp' front in the form of Rashida Jones, which I like. I think she'd be a great Wasp and she already has good chemistry with Rudd from working with him in I Love You Man. So in essence there's not a lot to hate about that...Of course until your world gets flipped upside down.
Now, written previously in this rant, I ranted on the Avengers sequel and brought up my grievances of changing character origins and leaving Ant-Man out of yet another Avengers film. Since hearing the proposed change of origins, I had always kind of hoped beyond hope that this was all just another clever Joss Whedon ruse. I had hoped that in the end, anything he said in interviews was just complete misdirection and Ant-Man, at the very least, as Hank Pym would show up in Avengers 2 and take his rightful place in the Ultron origin story. However, as revealed in the latest bit of casting news from yesterday this was not to be, there is no ruse and unfortunately what you see is exactly what you get. Yesterday it was officially announced that although Paul Rudd has been cast as Ant-Man he was not cast as Hank Pym. Rather he was cast as Scott Lang. Now for anyone that doesn't know who Scott Lang is within the Ant-Man comics, instead of rambling on even more and telling you his whole back story, rather I'll just simply say he is the successor to Ant-Man and chronologically the second person in the comics to take up the mantle of Ant-Man. So ok, I'm actually fine with this, somewhat. I had heard rumors to the effect that, all along, Edgar Wright's script always involved Scott Lang, but more interestingly enough the transition of Hank Pym passing on that mantle to Scott Lang. So with that news I now have to rethink my opinion on Paul Rudd. Although I think he's fine for the role of the Scott Lang version of Ant-Man, I feel as if this was one of many missed opportunities. I feel as if, had they cast Rashida Jones, to play Wasp as was rumored, her and Rudd would have been an excellent team on screen that would not only have been fun to watch but also would have transitioned well into the Avengers films.
So ok, we don't get the movie I originally envisioned, but at the very least we do get a cool origin story that will involve both incarnations of Ant-Man. A movie that can be told showing an already established Hank Pym as Ant-Man slowly transitioning from Ant-Man to his alter ego hero, Yellow Jacket (if you don't know what I'm talking about go read the comics). A movie where we can see both iterations of Ant-Man teaming up for a short time before the mantle is passed. That actually doesn't sound half bad. Sign me up for that...until...until the more frightening news, that followed directly after they confirmed Rudd as Scott Lang, was reported. The news that made my jaw drop and large Ralph Kramdenesque "Ughhhhh" come out of my mouth. The nightmarish news that the role of Hank Pym in this film would go to none other than Michael Douglas. Now let that sink in for minuet. No seriously take a minute and REALLY think about that. Now don't get me wrong. I like Michael Douglas, I really do. I think he's a brilliant actor and he's been phenomenal in a bevy a roles throughout his illustrious career, but past credits aside, he's not Hank Pym. Forget the fact that Hank Pym was even a brilliant scientist, which he'd need to pull off, but Hank Pym is a generally good hearted individual, who's cool and calculative. Most roles, not all, but the majority of which I have seen Michael Douglas in, he does not have these qualities. Douglas mostly plays parts in films where the character is angry, ruthless and vicious. Occasionally he can play the nice guy, but it's not his main skill set. It's just not. Gordon Gekko, Oliver Rose, Nicholas Van Orton, these are the names of characters you synonymies with Douglas playing. No one wants to see him play Steve Tobias from The In-Laws again. You want to see him portray what he's good at. So have him play a villain. He has the skill set and qualities to play a villain and probably a damn good one. I just don't see him as a hero though, not in any way that doesn't come off as campy or fake.
But let's even forget about all that for a second. Lets even disregard my opinion that he's not right for the part based on skill set. The one thing that's still staring you in the face, as it stared me in the face, is the most obvious flaw of them all. This is not 1987. Michael Douglas is 69 years old. That in it of itself should be the biggest red flag of them all for several reasons. One reason is the fact you will not see the Hank Pym version of Ant-Man in any type of action scene. Don't even begin to disillusion yourself, it will not happen. If you think that his part in this movie will amount to anything more than the token elderly voice of wisdom, than you are fooling yourself. This also chalks up to be another one of those missed opportunities I was referring to. Now if you're a total nerd like me, you probably heard the rumors way back that there was one person that was considered for the role, before any scripting was even complete, who was an individual who fanboys everywhere would giggle and shriek at the thought of playing the role. An individual who was one of Joss Whedon's boys. And that individual was Nathan Fillion. Now it has been reported over the years that unfortunately he's just too busy for the main roll with his Castle commitments, but a supporting role? One where he doesn't need to be there for every scene but just enough of the movie to let you know he's there. Sounds to me like the role that's gone to Michael Douglas would have been a perfect situation for someone like Fillion. Now tell me you're not reading this and frowning as much as I was when I read this news. Now in addition all I've just said, here is the other obvious flaw that will leave you disappointed. The fact that Michael Douglas is 69 means that his age needs to somewhat matchup with anyone who would be in contention to play Wasp. So if you haven't figured it out by now, allow me to read you the writing on the wall. This either means one of three possibilities. You will either never, EVER, get to see Wasp in all of her glory fighting alongside the Avengers because she will played by someone who is just far too old, or Wasp will never be brought up and will be completely left out of the MCU entirely or they will reimagine her character and completely change her origin. And oh joy, another character and story arc reimagined. How I'm such a HUGE fan of that........
So that's kind of my 2 cents on this whole situation. I'll always be a big fan of the character of Ant-Man, I'm a big fan of Edgar Wright and I'm still interested to see what he can bring to the table with this movie. Although my optimism on being satisfied at the end of this film has dwindled some, I'm still looking forward to it and I really hope my worst fears about this movie can be proven wrong. Here's hoping.
So how do you all feel about the latest casting additions to Ant-Man? Do you like the direction this movie is heading in? Do you think this movie will positively or negatively effect the MCU in the big picture? Let me know in the comments!