In 2015, Marvel Studios released one of its most unique movies with the Paul Rudd-led Ant-Man. The next year, Scott Lang played a pivotal role in Captain America: Civil War, before finding a superhero partner in 2018's Ant-Man and The Wasp.
With Hope Van Dyne among those snapped out of existence by Thanos, it was down to Ant-Man to help save the Multiverse in Avengers: Endgame.
We then had a four-year wait for the hero's next solo outing, but Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania proved a disappointment. Whether it was the underwhelming exploration of the Quantum Realm—created primarily with The Volume—or M.O.D.O.K.'s botched debut, the threequel wasn't Scott's finest moment.
However, Ant-Man's encounter with Kang the Conqueror set the stage for the size-changing superhero to play a pivotal role in Avengers: The Kang Dynasty after inadvertently dooming the Multiverse. With Kang out and Doctor Doom in, it's unclear whether Avengers: Doomsday will touch on Scott's actions and what vanquishing Kang means for reality.
Rudd is the subject of a new profile for The Hollywood Reporter, and Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige teased Ant-Man's role in the movie when he said that the actor plays "more of an elder statesman now, dealing with other newer characters."
It's a surprising new status quo for Scott, and implies that he could serve as a mentor to a certain team of young heroes his daughter assembles: the Champions.
Talking more generally about why Marvel Studios wanted Rudd to play Ant-Man, Feige added, "We needed this guy to be a criminal but also someone that you’re rooting for no matter what, and that’s Paul. He’s also funny and good-looking and unbelievably charismatic."
Rudd said that "the Edgar [Wright] angle" initially drew him to Ant-Man, and while the filmmaker eventually dropped out, "The thought I had was, 'If this can be a thing that really works and people see it, maybe it will help me get some interesting, smaller things financed and I can have a little more control over what comes after it.'"
He's done that, of course, but admits that not all of them were winners. Asked about Ghostbusters, Rudd simply said, "Life is sometimes just collecting experiences," before elaborating on his regrets in general.
"I think Tina Fey said it best when she was like, sometimes you do something and you thought the script was great and it really works and then you’re watching it, and all of a sudden the credits come up, and you go, 'Wow, that one shrunk in the wash,'" he said with a shrug. "I’ve been in several things that have shrunk in the wash."
In Avengers: Doomsday, beloved heroes from three distinct universes will be set on a deadly collision course and face an existential threat unlike anything they’ve ever encountered.
Avengers: Doomsday is set to be released on December 18.