"Listen, if we were lucky enough to be able to do a sequel or even a prequel, I’d be way into it," director Peyton Reed recently said regarding his upcoming Marvel film “Ant-Man” (you can watch the interview below). "I’ve really fallen in love with these characters. I was always in love with the characters in the comic book world, but there’s a lot of story to tell with Hank Pym."
Reed brings up an interesting point. The “Ant-Man” character was originally Henry "Hank" Pym, the creator of the Pym particles technology, which allows him and others to shrink and to communicate with ants, and a founding member of “The Avengers” in the comics. Obviously, that’s not the canon of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but when you think about it, it’s an inspired choice to make the MCU version of Pym the secondary character to Paul Rudd‘s Scott Lang. If the movie used Michael Douglas’ Pym as the protagonist, you essentially get another super smart scientist character a la Tony Stark and Bruce Banner, and those two have all the science mumbo jumbo scenes in the MCU locked down. By going with Lang instead, you get a career criminal —very different from the rest of the MCU’s heroic characters— and you bring in a mentor dynamic to the film which also doesn’t really exist in any of the other movies.
Look, it’s not reinventing movies or anything, but credit Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish for dreaming up arguably a more interesting origin story movie for the “Ant-Man” character. As Marvel chief Kevin Feige says in a featurette below, “Ant Man was one of the founding members of the Avengers, but Scott [Lang] isn’t ready for prime time yet. That gives us a certain amount of freedom to have fun, to exceed expectations and to surprise people with something new and original.”
READ MORE: Why Edgar Wright Left Marvel’s ‘Ant-Man’: Analysis & The Screenplay Rumors
I assume you’re never going to see that Hank Pym prequel movie for the aforementioned reasons above, plus it would need to be a period piece, probably set in the 1980s (though one could argue that could be pretty different for Marvel too). But maybe a Marvel One-Shot would be best suited for Pym’s back story, since Feige has recently admitted that series has fallen by the wayside and he’d love to bring it back.
Anyhow, “Ant-Man” is almost upon us and Marvel’s starting to kick the marketing into a higher gear. Two more clips have surfaced, one about fighting and the other about the physics of the Ant-Man costume. And another “Ant-Man” featurette has appeared, discussing the original origins for the character, how Ant-Man fits into the MCU and an interesting viral clip that ties the MCU together. “Ant-Man” shrinks into theaters on July 17th. Watch the new clips below.