When people mention Ant-Man, everyone seems like, "Excuse me? That's a superhero?" Even some members of CBM seem to think that Ant-Man isn't movie quality.
But why is that? Some seem not to remember Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America weren't cool and were just lame. Back then no one thought that Iron Man would work in a film. Same with Thor and Captain America. But they did.
What's different with Ant-Man? Because he changes sizes and that's stupid?!!?! Why is this thought of as a stupid superpower? Yes, at times his powers have been portrayed as completely useless but that does not mean they are, rather it means they were portrayed wrong.
Action
I could see an action scene playing out something like this in an Ant-Man movie.
Okay, imagine yourself as Ant-Man. Ten men fire their guns at you but miss due to the fact you've shrunk to ant size. The men search the floor for you but before they find you you've jumped to the light switch and turned it off. The lights go out, two hurriedly make their way to the light switch only to find you've grown to regular size and they slam right into your fists. You shrink down again, to avoid the bullet which was just fired. Using an ant to fly on, you make your way to a mans ear and whistle once inside it. With the man rendered unconscious you turn your attention to the other six men in the room. You send a swarms of ants to distract them, while you make your way behind one man, jump off your flying ant and growing hit him on the back of the neck. Hitting the floor with your feet you shrink down again only to grow and tackle another man. You render him unconscious only to see another man about to tackle you. You shrink down again, the man thinking he missed his target falls to the floor, under neath him you grow, kick him off with both feet, jump on your flying ant, and while he's in the air, you fly above him and grow to regular size, kicking him to the floor again. You somersault and shrink down landing on your ant again and kick another man in the face while growing to regular size. The man goes flies though the air and hits a wall. You shrink down again landing on your flying ant. A man fires at you, you and your ant avoid it and you jumping of your ant hit him in the face with a tiny fist. He stumbles back as you grow behind him taking him out by hitting him on the back of the neck. A different man tries to catch you of guard and fires at you. You jump while shrinking down, the bullet whizzes beside you. You take the next man out buy growing again and springing on your hands you hit him with both of your feet. The last man drops his gun and gives up.
That is just some of the many ways Ant-Man could use his powers to fight. Not to mention he could do silent take downs easily or grow giant size. Although I would prefer for the ladder to be used when he was in an Avengers movie and not in Ant-Man.
Costume
So now that we have confirmed his powers could work well in a live action movie lets see how his costume would work.
Lets see we have a slightly dorky helmet with a red suit. How can you fit that to the big screen?
I imagine something like these:
No, these aren't my fan posters, check out their DeviantART pages here:
iNo019 and
whit-taker.
I also found this picture above. I'm not sure where exactly it came from though. Seems to have been posted on
SHH forms but I can't find out exactly where.
Obviously the costume design would need some more work but with fan made designs as good as that already to base it on, I don't see where you could go wrong.
Story
Now this is where most people get off saying, "None of the Ant-Man stories are interesting enough to have their own film."
Well, they're right. In a way. The main problem is the way they are portrayed it doesn't seem as interesting as the others. But that doesn't mean they can't be
adapted in an interesting way.
Spy Film Edgar Wright has said that it would be a spy
film which makes sense if you think about it. The Marvel Cinematic Universe films have all used a type of genre film to base their films off of. Iron Man was a high tech thriller, The Incredible Hulk was essentially a monster film, Thor was a mythology film, Captain America: The First Avenger was a war movie, and The Avengers was an alien invasion flick. So what's their next film to be based off of? A spy film! Brilliant.
Heroes An Ant-Man movie most likely would have not just one character but three different heroes to use. I'll name why each one would be interesting in their own personal story.
Hank Pym Hank is sort of a mixture of Bruce Banner and Tony Stark. Brilliant but he only made one successful thing, “Pym Particles”. No matter what he has tried after creating that, he has always failed. Even his greatest creation Ultron ultimately ended up in failure. This would be an interesting character to see if nothing else from the emotional stand point. Who ever plays him must be a VERY good actor to play a very likeable but struggling individual.
Scott Lang The complete opposite of Hank Pym, Scott's a joking, wise guy. While he is a very smart individual he doesn't mind being a sort of Spider-Man style joker. But his story is an interesting one as well, as he steals the Ant-Man equipment from his friend Hank to help his daughter. This storyline adapted into the film would be an interesting plot as well.
Janet van Dyne A cute, innocent girl who is madly in love with Hank, who is always there for him, yet he never seems to be there for her. This would be an interesting subplot to work out as well.
Villains While it gets a bit sketchy here, I'm sure they could work something out. Lets see some of the villains I picked.
Elihas Starr aka (Egg Head) Now I know most will say, “Oh, he's silly because he has a funny shaped head.” No, there are real people who look similar to the comic character while he couldn't be quite as extreme he could easily fit into a movie. Seriously if people can take that scientists can turn into monsters and other scientists can have their brain grow huge, they won't mind a person's head resembling an egg shape. He could easily have a code name: “Egg Head” as well. Elihas could work for A.I.M or Hydra, and be a friend of Hank's. This would make an emotional story for Hank as his best friend could betray him.
Chen Lu or Igor Stancheck aka Radioactive Man While at the moment this is only rumor from
MarvelFreashman's article but if true it would show the brilliance of Marvel Studios. Depending on how they use him, it would keep him as an unused character in Iron Man 3, yet probably explaining his origin, thus letting you concentrate on the story of Ant-Man. Elihas is a great villain but I had been thinking of what kind of muscle could Ant-Man fight? An adaption of Radioactive Man is a brilliant idea.
Ultron I honestly don't think it would be good to have Ultron be in the movie any more than a cameo. I think it would work best if Hank was working on him in Avengers 2 to combat a threat they had, then ultimately reveal Ultron as a villain at the end. If anyone is worried about not having enough Ultron that way, remember Ultron never dies.
Closing Thoughts
These are just some of the reasons a young fan of Ant-Man has thought up. Probably a better fan like Edgar Wright would know what to do even better.
Hopefully this changes your mind about one of the most underrated superheroes of all time.