After a long and tumultuous road, ‘Ant-Man’ is finally beginning production today. The problems started back in May when Marvel Studios and Edgar Wright parted ways, but then continued as a search for a new director and additional writers suddenly got under way to keep the film on track for a 2016 release. Finally, Peyton Reed of ‘Bring It On’ and ‘Yes Man’ signed on to helm the film featuring the size-shifting scientist supreme, with names like Adam McKay, Gabriel Ferrari, and Adam Barrer took passes at the script, and the House of Ideas was off to the races. Now, with these issues ironed out, the cast and crew has assembled in San Francisco (rather than London) to get started.
Alright, gang. Today is the day. LET’S. GET. small. #AntMan
— Peyton Reed (@MrPeytonReed) August 18, 2014
Aside from the tweet from the director commemorating the occasion, Marvel.com has issued a press release revealing a few more details about the project. At this year’s San Diego Comic-Con, it was confirmed that Evangeline Lilly and Corey Stoll would be joining Paul Rudd and Michael Douglas as the leads of the upcoming Phase Three film. But in today’s announcement, the studio shared a number of other actors and actresses to fill out the cast after the departure of a few others such as Patrick Wilson and Matt Gerard.
The latest additions to ‘Ant-Man’ include Judy Greer, Bobby Cannavale, T.I., Abby Ryder Fortson, Wood Harris, Gregg Turkington, Michael Peña, David Dastmalchian, and John Slattery. The studio failed to include who these people would be playing but Slattery has already appeared in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as an older Howard Stark in ‘Iron Man 2’. This seemingly confirms previous rumors that Hank Pym will be a contemporary of Stark and could have crossed paths with Agent Peggy Carter, Arnim Zola, and Alexander Pierce.
As for the rest of the new cast members, Badass Digest suggests that Greer could be playing the ex-wife of Rudd’s Scott Lang and that Cannavale is stepping into the role that Wilson vacated, which could be Greer’s husband and the cop that arrested Lang back in the day. While these are all interesting characters, I’m most curious about who rapper T.I. will be playing. He has shown off his acting chops a bit in the past, but none of his credits have been as big as a blockbuster Marvel movie, so this could be a big step in his career.
What do you think about all the new cast members in ‘Ant-Man’? Do you have any theories about who they will be playing? And what do you think about John Slattery joining the project to most likely reprise his role as Howard Stark? Sound off in the comment section.
‘Ant-Man’ starring Michael Douglas, Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, and Corey Stoll flies into theaters on July 17, 2015.