I am a Marvel fan. Time to be real, get a little personal, Marvel is my slow jam. So over the last few years I have been known to get crazy excited for the Marvel Studios panel in Hall H. There has been an impressive display every year since the start of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, leading up to the huge unveiling last year of Marvel’s Phase Two. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a lover of all comics, and I’m excited for the potential of a DC Cinematic Universe, but this year it’s Marvel.
This year we can expect more from Phase Two, including some probable first looks at the next slate of films. Probably some casting news and more revelations regarding Phase Three, which so far includes Ant-Man and Doctor Strange, plus 3 mystery movies we previously discussed here.
There has been a lot of Marvel discussion lately regarding the recent announcements of the 3 mystery release dates, but not a lot of talk about the first film of Marvel’s Phase Three; Edgar Wright’s Ant-Man. So you can probably imagine that today we will be discussing some Ant-Man rumors that have been swirling.
There isn’t really a question as to why we haven’t heard much from Ant-Man, because we’ve known for a while that Wright wouldn’t start production on Ant-Man until after The World’s End wrapped up, which is pretty much now as it gets ready for release. There have been a lot of names thrown around as star of Ant-Man, most common being Nathan Fillion due to his sheer awesomeness and connections to Joss Whedon. Also, he’s a Geek god and would no doubt draw a crowd to the film, but we have to STOP ASKING FOR NATHAN FILLION AS ANT-MAN! Sorry, sorry, it’s hard to let go.
Marvel Studios is running full steam ahead with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, planning 5 movies over the next 2 years featuring some already established characters as well as some new properties. We will be seeing Thor: The Dark World on November 8th, 2013, Captain America: The Winter Soldier on April 4th, 2014, Guardians of the Galaxy on August 1st, 2014, and The Avengers 2 on May 1st, 2015. Phase Three will launch with Ant-Man on November 6th, 2015.
Marvel has recently announced 3 more release dates for undisclosed movies, which we can assume all fit into Marvel’s Phase Three. These dates are May 6th, 2016 and May 5th, 2017. The third date released is July 8th, 2016, keeping in line with Marvel Studios goal for two movies a year for the REST OF OUR LIVES. Not that anyone is complaining.
Whenever teaser footage is “leaked” there’s always this infinite battle between the internet and movie companies. They for some reason don’t want everyone to see the teaser, and talk about the teaser, and share the teaser and generally do their PR jobs for them. Or maybe they DO, and by hiding it from us like it’s a weird reverse double bluff situation, we’re playing right into their hands? Which is silly, since this footage that was released is from a test reel that was premiered at SDCC last year, and not even technically a teaser. Regardless, the outcome of the studio censorship is it tends to make sharing and viewing these leaked teasers difficult, and sometimes that can lead to a disparity from your expectations and what actually happens. For instance, I thought the teaser was going to be something totally amazing and mind-blowing.
In fact, if I was to describe my imaginary teaser for Ant Man, I would say my favorite scenes were definitely the parts where Ant-Man finally, finally did what we all thought he would do, and shrunk down and crawled up a guard’s pants.
Then as the guard was trying to take off his pants, he ran up his leg and dove into the guard’s penis through his pee hole, and then rapidly expanded himself while in his urethra, tearing the guard’s dick open horribly, then kicking him through the groin out his butthole, in a fantastic display of gore worthy of an old Giallo film! The next few scenes were of him running around inside the other guards inner ear canal, using the harmonic balance and special lower hertz frequencies to sort of “puppeteer” the guard, making the guard punch himself repeatedly in the face over and over before ripping out his own eyes, in what I thought was a great homage to the work of Lucio Fulci. Then Ant-Man expanded inside the man’s head, creating a head explosion that possibly tops the infamous one from Scanners.
This one.
It all ended pretty perfectly when Ant-Man then turned to the camera, pointed his fingers and said his new catch phrase: “It aint easy being cheesy!”, which I found a bit gauche, but I supposed we’ll get used to it.
Right. Well that’s NOT what the Ant-Man teaser was. Here it is as long as it’ll stay up, which probably isn’t long.
VIDEO REMOVED BY VIMEO
Marvel’s Ant-Man Trailer from Anthony Green on Vimeo.
See? Instead of my imaginary awesomeness, it was a fairly interesting fight scene of Ant-Man clearing a hallway with two guards in it, and instead of ripping their dicks or heads open from the inside, he just kinda punches them in the teeth maybe? It was more interesting than it sounds, but only just so. I think my version is a lot better, but for SOME REASON Hollywood has yet to take any of my ideas or use any of the scripts I send their offices detailing my outlandish plans to fix the movie business. I think it’s all a conspiracy against me. Anyway, here’s some screen caps, and gifs courtesy of [Buzzfeed]:
Those are some pretty neat GIFs, but these stills give you a better look at the actual Ant-Man suit, albeit a blurry one. Keep in mind these images are only from a test reel, so the final costume will probably look a lot different.
So all in all, that’s pretty cool, but as always my version is better. But I have trust in Edgar Wright and I presume when the flick rolls by in 2015 it’ll still be pretty great.
As a DC girl it’s a tough pill to swallow, but I think we have to admit that Marvel is much better than DC when it comes to movies. There is no denying that The Avengers and it’s “feeder” movies, have done incredibly well. So well that the people at Marvel have decided to let some much lesser known heroes make the leap to the big screen.
If you were to ask the average Joe-schmo walking down the street to name some Marvel superheroes you’d more than likely get an assortment of Spider-Man, the Hulk, and Wolverine. You’d also get quite a few Batmans and Supermans, but that’s a rant for another day. The chances you’d have someone bring up Ant-Man and Doctor Strange are slim, unless they are comics readers of course.
That is all about to change in the coming years though because Ant-Man and Doctor Strange are set to make their big screen debut. Both of these projects have been the subject of rumor and speculation for what seems like an eternity, so it’s nice to finally have some kind of date attached. As of right now, Ant-Man is scheduled for a fall of 2015 release with Doctor Strange following sometime in 2016.
No casting announcements have been made for Ant-Man, but it already has a director and no surprise here, it’s Edgar Wright.
For years now, whenever you heard about a possible movie about Ant-Man, you heard about Edgar Wright. Wright has been the driving force behind getting Ant-Man made and has written the script as well. He’s the man behind such classics like Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead and even the fantastic but short-lived Spaced. Given that track record we have to wonder- will Ant-Man have a role for either Simon Pegg or Nick Frost? We’ll have to wait and see.
All we know about Doctor Strange is that Marvel’s Kevin Feige is a fan.
[quote]”‘Doctor Strange,’ which I’ve been talking about for years, is definitely one of them,” he confirmed. “He’s a great, original character, and he checks the box off this criteria that I have: he’s totally different from anything else we have, just like ‘Guardians of the Galaxy.’ He’s totally different from anything we’ve done before, as is ‘Ant-Man,’ which keeps us excited.”[/quote]
There’s been no director announcement but it wouldn’t be a movie of the geek persuasion if Guillermo del Toro’s name wasn’t thrown around at least once. Apparently the script has been finished and now it’s just biding it’s time. When a director is attached, I’d like to suggest a name for the Sorcerer Supreme- Joe Manganiello. Yes he was Flash Thompson in 2002’s Spider-Man and then again in 2007’s Spider-Man 3 but by the time Doctor Strange makes it’s way to theaters almost a decade will have passed so I think it could work. Tall, dark, handsome, brooding… I’m on to something here.
Both of these projects are still in pre-production so everything is subject to change, but for now let’s just enjoy the possibilities of what’s to come.
We all know what’s slated for Phase 2 of the Marvel movie plan. The ambitious three year plan will culminate in The Avengers 2, which is due to melt your eyeballs on May 1st, 2015. One of the big questions though is what characters will be introduced in the sequels (Iron Man 3, Thor 2, Captain America 2) and the new flicks in the fold (Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant-Man) that might be involved in the Avengers sequel. Right now we’re going to concentrate on two of the heroes that could make their way into the lineup: The Vision and Ant-Man.
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First, the Vision stuff. There’s been a lot of chatter about the Vision and who should be cast. Vin Diesel has been the one major actor that wants to throw his hat in the ring. According to GammaSquad, the Diesel himself posted a profile pic on his Facebook of the Vision before taking it down.
Obviously if we got our news from Facebook pages, all I would gather is people like to shove political views down my throat, claiming their intelligent views are supreme despite the fact they can’t tell the difference between the words “your” and “you’re”. Basically we’re going to take this with a grain of salt. While I have no doubt that Vin is lobbying heavily for this role, we are going to take the ‘wait and see’ approach. After all, he’s not even the popular choice to take on the role. That would be…
Agent Coulson himself, Clark Gregg. Despite the creepiness of seeing someone take the initiative to plant the seed in our heads with the image above (courtesy of Comics Alliance), you have to admit it would be cool despite the fact that it would go against the extremely convoluted comic canon, which frankly there is no way they’ll adhere to anyhow.
Of course, we all know what happened to Agent Coulson in The Avengers, and if you don’t, stop reading right now and go watch the damn movie. Regardless, Nerd Reactor asked Clark Gregg about the upcoming S.H.I.E.L.D. TV show. For spoiler reasons, I’ll let you know that the link throws out Agent Coulson’s status in the Avengers movie in the first sentence so *SPOILER ALERT* I guess.
Now let’s explore what Gregg had to say about the Vision:
“You know the Vision is synthetic with a soul, sort of, and he’s an amazing character who I loved when I used to read those comics. I love the idea of Coulson as that guy, but I don’t know if that’s in the cards.”
I love Agent Coulson. He felt like part of the team, having brought them together for the finale, and being in all the films because Samuel L. Jackson can’t be the only one building his IMDB resume by the minute. Again, this would defy the comic continuity, but who knows, I think we can trust Joss Whedon to make the right decision on this one, right?
As for that next character, Ant-Man. We know that Edgar Wright is doing At World’s End with his boys, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost right now. Where does that land the Ant-Man movie? SlashFilm is saying that we could see it in two different scenarios: After The Avengers 2 movie, or perhaps even in the middle of Phase 2. The biggest indicator is that they are citing sources stating that after Thor 2 is done filming, that Ant-Man will occupy the same lot immediately afterwards. Of course, he’d also be into post-production on At World’s End so this could prove to just be wishful thinking. Marvel also seems to want to keep to the schedule of two Marvel movies each year, and with Iron Man 3 and Thor 2 occupying 2013, and Captain America 2 and Guardians of the Galaxy taking on 2014, there might not be enough room for Ant-Man.
However, if we stick to the Vision showing up in the Avengers sequel, we NEED Hank Pym to show up and set the stage – so stay tuned. I’m sure we will have more news as it comes because it seems to be coming out at a good pace now with the hype slowing building.
Grizzly Bomb 