One of the biggest pet peeves fans have with the Marvel Cinematic Universe is the fact that Hank Pym (Ant-Man) and Janet Van Dyne (The Wasp) weren't founding Avengers. Marvel Studios chose to head down a different route, revealing that they operated as crime-fighters on behalf of S.H.I.E.L.D. decades before Earth's Mightiest Heroes assembled.
There were once tentative plans for The Wasp to join the team in Avengers: Age of Ultron, and it's now been revealed in The Story of Marvel Studios book (via Slash Film) that writer and director Joss Whedon had his sights set on New Girl and 500 Days of Summer star Zooey Deschanel.
"It was all about The Wasp," producer Jeremy Latcham explains. "[Joss] wanted to cast Zooey Deschanel. [Wasp] was the funniest character in the whole movie, and well-written."
Whedon adds: "The Wasp happened because there was a short period where it looked like we weren't going to be able to get Scarlett [due to scheduling conflicts], so I was panicking. I thought, 'Hold on, we could do The Wasp.' Then I fell in love with that. But we did get Scarlett, and then I realized I had written this entire movie about The Wasp. Oops. I overcompensated there."
We'd love to take a look at that version of the screenplay, but with The Vision, Quicksilver, and the Scarlet Witch all added to the mix, including The Wasp and Black Widow was clearly too much for one movie. There's no word on whether this was going to be Janet or Hope, but seeing as Ant-Man was in development at roughly the same time, we'd actually put money on the latter.
As for Deschanel, she would have been a great pick forThe Wasp in the MCU. Whether the actress would have wanted to play the character is another matter, of course, but it's certainly interesting to think about what might have been.
What do you guys think?
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