Ant-Man Assemble

I'm not sure how a guy who shrinks (and telepathically communicates with ants?) works in the "realistic" world of Norton's Hulk and Fav's/RDJ's Tony Stark, but it's got to be easier than getting a Norse god to fit in.

Even as a lead-in to The AVENGERS, I don't see how Ant-Man warrants his own film. I hope that fat kid in the frog suit from the '80's Spider-Man comics gets his own movie as a lead-in for SPIDER-MAN 4.

My biggest concern about all these Avengers movies is that they each have to succeed on their own terms. They shouldn't just be cranked out for the sake of setting up the big crossover movie. So with Ant-Man, getting Wright on board seems pretty crucial--I trust him to make an entertaining movie of this character. If they can't get Wright, not only should they not bother with an Ant-Man movie, I don't think they should even bother with putting him in The Avengers. Yeah, I know he's a charter member, but come on, his main attribute is that he's a wife-beater and can't settle on a superhero identity. Is anyone going to be upset if he's left out?

It makes more sense to me to go with some of the later members, like Hawkeye, the Vision, and The Scarlet Witch. They have more personality. Especially the Witch, since they need a female team member and the Wasp is pretty passive. And no, I don't think these characters all need individual set-up movies, either. Once we get the big four, we'll get the idea that this is the Marvel Universe, there are superheroes around, and we can fill in the blanks from there.

I'm not sure if Ant-Man's much more or less realistic than The Hulk, but, yeah, Thor will be the tough sell, I think. I also don't think it's such a bad idea to introduce the masses to Ant-Man via an ensemble movie, even if the intent is that he'll eventually have a solo film. The general public is far more aware of Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, and the Hulk than of him.

It's definitely weird that they're cutting the one female character out of the early Avengers story, though. Even if the Wasp's powers might be perceived as somewhat redundant in light of Ant-Man's, the combination of the two characters makes them more of a presence that will be able to hold up to the starpower of the other four. Plus, she turns out to be a bigger player in the Avengers than her ex- in the long run, anyway.

I'm not sure that Ant Man needs his own movie either, but I'm also leaning towards Thor not requiring one. I like the way he was treated in The Ultimates, where for most of the book the team isn't sure if he's the real deal or not.

Bring in Ant man in the avengers flick then spin his movie off from that, why does everyone need to be introduced in their own movie before the avengers?
Wright / Cornish's movie plays with the format a bit too much - I heard it goes right through all the ant-men right up to the dick-hole irredeemable (great comic btw), so it would struggle to segue into a team movie, but would spin off brilliantly.
Remember, no-one's been clamouring for an ant man/ wasp movie, it's more about wright/cornish doing ANY superhero flick that gets me excited. Ant man and the wasp don't even have their own comic (at the minute) they were always defined by their involvement in the various avengers teams.
If it was me, I'd bring Pym in as a scientist mate of Stark's in IM2 and Wasp as a bird Stark was fucking who left him to hook up with Pym. It wouldn't take long to do and would set up some nice conflict in the Avengers franchise (Pym was always bitching about being inferior to Stark).
Sure it skips on alot of the accepted history of the characters but are we really married to that eastern european kidnapping story from back then. Ant man is such a small ('scuse pun) character that I don't even recall any reboot or ret-con of his origin.
And as a point: Why have the orginal team of Avengers, other iterations were far more interesting and most of the heroes in the marvel universe have had been members at one time or another.
Bruce Campbell for Loki. hah, didn't see that coming in Spidey 1-3 did you!

I'm much more interested in Wright's take on a character he apparantly likes than any team-up film, so I'm definitely hoping this doesn't go messing that up.

Ant-Man seems like a movie that could fill the Ghost Rider or Punisher: War Zone slots Marvel usually separates for third-tier characters. I'd wager an Ant-Man film for late 2010, maybe.

I'd bet that could introduce Wasp there, too, and stick her in The Avengers.

Also, Wright also has the final film in the Pegg/Frost trilogy and the disaster movie!

God, if someone ever needed to be cloned...

Can't really see this character working in AVENGERS flick at all, with the way HULK and IRON MAN are presented. I wouldn't mind a silly solo attempt though.

I'm betting Ant-man will be changed to Giant-Man between now and 2011.

Inithially,I would go with 6 Avengers...Captain America, Iron Man, Hulk, Thor, Ant-Man, Wasp. In Avengers 1 Carol Danvers could be introduced as a liason between the US government, she could be saved by Captain Marvel and become Ms Marvel and join The Avengers at the end of the film. If the first film were successful I would introduce The Kree in Avengers 2, and The Kree Skrull war in Avengers 3.

Ant-Man would be a good smaller budget superhero film, but one where The Wasp was included as well. Ant-Man is more interesting as part of The Avengers or in a team up with another hero.

I'm not sure why he wouldn't work. He's another science-based hero and even has the same kind of human flaws that inform Stark and so many of the other Marvel guys.

If anything, it almost seems like he fits in too well. While it works in the comics, is it stretching credibility to have two genius scientists, one who struggles with addiction and the other who struggles with frequent mental breakdowns (not to mention a brilliant physicist with the ultimate anger management issues), on one team in a single movie?

Avengers: Some Kind Of Monster

I don't see a problem with having Antman in the Avengers (Although I would put Wasp in there too). It's just how it would interfere with Edgar Wright's version that is the problem.

Clash of casting would be the biggest problem. Storyline wise, The Avenger's would (i guess) be set after the Antman Solo movie, thus leaving the origin story untouched.

I can definitely see Thor working as a standalone movie. Superhero combined with fantasy? Sounds golden to me. And I don't see why he can't stand alongside the other Avengers, either. The whole point of a "universe" superhero team-up (as opposed to FF or X-Men where they're all linked together by some common element), to me, is that they all come from different places and represent a variety of different character types. I mean, it's not like Hulk is "realistic", even if they pay lip service to science in his origins, so would it really be a huge deal to throw in a pure fantasy character?

Honestly, that's one of my pet peeves about comic book movies these days: they're afraid to cut loose and just acknowledge that they're set in a fantastical world that isn't our own. People will accept the idea of a world full of superheroes and villains, you don't have to belabouredly establish each comic book element.

Why is anyone surprised at Ant-Man's involvement? I'm pretty sure that about a year or so ago when Kevin Feige first started really discussing an Avengers film, that he said the line-up would likely be: Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, Hulk, Ant-Man, and Wasp. They've been apart of the plan all along. That's why a solo Ant-Man movie is already in the works and they already have a director.

Anyway, I'm not too worried. I suspect Wright will probably be consulted on the casting of the character (be it the Hank Pym or Scott Lang version, as both will be in his solo flick) and for Wasp as well if she is included. Hell, Wright's probably already been tossing around names himself with the studio.

I kind of wonder about this, and I don't think it's as simple as you're making it out to be.

By getting into comic books, you're more-or-less setting your willing suspension of disbelief at a different level than it is for a lot of moviegoers. We've also become very accustomed to crossovers because we see the characters re-interpreted over and over again to the point that there's a multiplicity inherent to, say, Captain America. In one series, he might be a vaguely believable, slightly enhanced human guy beating up nazis, in the next, he's in space, fighting aliens, or finding his way through some mystical hell dimension.

You wouldn't buy this for, say, James Bond, no matter how unrealistic his universe is. You wouldn't buy Robocop fighting demons. Say what you will about Iron Man's comic background, but they established the movie character as a fairly reality-based guy with some exaggerated elements. There's absolutely nothing in Favreau's movie that suggests anything mystical. I haven't seen Hulk yet, but I'm guessing the same holds true there.

I'm not saying to mix these elements filmically is impossible, mind you. I just think it'll be more of a challenge to do it well in such a way that a non-comic book-inclined audience will buy into it than your post suggests.

Honey, I Shrunk the Superhero?

I guess I find shrinking and insect-telepathy less believable than robotic armour (IM), or giganticism, strength enhancement, and color changing (HULK), with the current Marvel-film-universe tone.

I dunno, maybe if it's approached with Richard Matheson (INC. SHRINKING MAN) sensibilities, and avoids MEET DAVE comparisons.

If Thor is set up in his own movie and then brought together with other characters who also had their own movies, I don't think anyone will think twice about it. We'll be used to the characters at that point.

There used to be a time--before the advent of all these big-budget, oh-so-serious superhero flicks--when everyone just accepted that a superhero story meant that weird shit was going to happen. Whether you read comics or not. The fact that we've had a decade or more of somewhat pedantic superhero movies that hold the audience's hand through their origins doesn't change the fact that people have never had a lot of trouble embracing the archetype and just going with it. I don't recall mass complaints after The Incredibles that we never saw the character's origins. Ditto League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, the movie. Or hell, Star Wars gives us a world crammed with many different elements, some mystical, some SFnal. People can handle it.

For all intents and purposes, Thor's just a superhero whose origins are supernatural. The fact that he gets his powers from a magic stick whereas the Hulk gets his from a Gamma Bomb is a pretty fine distinction. The "science" in these movies may as well be magic.

Why oh why can't people grasp the simple fact that if done right, people will accept most any fantastic element in a superhero movie? I get really sick of all of the "fitting in with the realism of the movie" crap. It boils down to how the concept is executed, bottom line. Superheros are FANTASY. I don't want something stupid, of course, but I can get with a guy who shrinks, a Norse God, a planet eating being, whatever, as long as it's GOOD.

And so would the general public.

The problem with Ant-Man isn't his origin or his powers. It's that, compared to just about any other hero, he lacks the vital power fantasy element of the superhero. Any adolescent kid would like to be super-strong, or invulnerable, or be able to fly, or have claws pop out of his hands. I very much doubt that a lot of kids fantasize about being able to shrink down to the size of an ant and talk to them. It just doesn't have that primal wish fulfillment angle. And when you put that up against Thor, Iron Man, and the Hulk, what you get is the Avengers equivalent of Aquaman; the guy on the team who nobody would want to be.

Mash his various character stages together, let him shrink or grow at will, and maybe we'll be getting somewhere.

If anyone can make Ant-Man cool, it's Edgar Wright, I'll tell you that much.

I reaaaaaaaally hope he doesn't go the way of Vaughn on this project.

Okay, one thing I haven't read into involving these films is the contracts. Are stars beings signed onto the Avengers film as well as sequels to their own films? As far as I remember seeing, Downey's only signed onto one more Iron Man film. I have no idea about Norton but if he's not signed, he's most likely angry enough to stay away. If they set up all the crossovers but don't keep their stars, what's the point?

I thought Downey signed a three-film contract, no? As for Norton, it's hard to say.

Is it just me, or is Ant-Man utterly fucking boring? I think I'd rather watch a video of Edgar Wright jerking off than an Ant-Man film.

Eh, that depends on whether or not Wright is also directing the video.

I'd like to see his Ant-Man film, but I'd much rather see his third film with Pegg and Frost.

Marvel may be jumping the gun too fucking fast here.

Is Ant-Man about a dude who gets shrunk to the size of an ant and... decides to fight crime? :\ Or can he change his size at will?

Random musings...

• Like Prankster said, the fact the the characters are so diverse, makes it interesting.
  
• The fact that Antman's powers are pretty tiny (pun intended) compared to the others is actually part of his charm.
  
• Pretty sure that massive charge of power that got fired off into the sky, near the Iron Man finale, may have links to Thor ending up on earth...
  
• Who would you have them fight? - Reckon they'll go the Ultimates route & have them rucking with HULK?

Wasn't there a point where films didn't need seperate establishing films for all the characters?

Fuck this.

I figured a simple way to introduce Ant-Man was to have Hank Pym be in Iron Man 2 as an engineer working on miniaturized technology. Then, whoops, he shrinks himself somehow. Cut to the Avengers movie, and he's now Ant-Man. Not a lot of fuss.

Having said that, I love the idea of a Wright stand-alone movie. But...I can't see how Marvel could easily work an Ant-Man movie in with all the other crap they've got moving towards Avengers in 2011.

I'm not sure of this is related news or anything, but Joe Cornish has been periodically away from the Saturday radio show he does with Adam Buxton here in the UK over the last few weeks as he's been having meetings in LA about "a movie".

He did mention he was at Quentin Tarantino's house, though, which I believe is where Wright is staying in LA. This might mean something Ant-Man related is still going on behind the scenes with him and Wright, but could equally be related to an entirely different project.

There's some vague speculation, right there.

I would like a Cornish/Wright movie of any description, Ant-Man would be ideal.

I would definately pay money to see Robocop fighting demons.

Actually it seems better for Marvel to introduce a character like Ant-Man in an ensemble movie like the Avengers. He is quirkier than the others and the Avengers would be a good way to measure whether he can carry a movie on his own. And who knows, maybe he turns out to be massively popular and Wright ends up with a 150 mil. budget.

Sure. But it all depends how it's done, how closely the reality of Thor's filmic universe mirrors that of Iron Man's and the Hulk's.

Quite different, I'd say. Plus, it's implied that their abilities are more-or-less innate, like mutants in Marvel. Unless I'm forgetting someone, it's all vaguely explained as science-based, not magic-based.

I don't understand citing this as a success on any level. It could be that the varying nature of the characters' backstories were overlooked because of the sucking.

That may be the best example, but there's really not much there related to the real world. Since the whole universe was unfamiliar, Lucas could start from scratch with his science and religion.

There's a lot more to it than that, I'd say, especially if Thor's Asgardian origin is given a lot of attention. It opens up questions of theology and the nature of the universe in ways that genius inventors and people subject to genetic alterations do not. Mind you, I'm not saying your average moviegoer is going to do any deep soul searching on the basis of a comic movie, but I predict that it will be jarring (possibly on a subconscious level) for him to reconcile the world of Iron Man (which is governed by our real-life understanding of the natural world and the workings of the universe are similarly left open-ended or unexplored) to the world of Thor (which is or was governed, at least at some point or another, by a bunch of gods that no one really believes in and contradicts both the monotheistic and atheistic views of most modern people in the West).

If considered separately, it's not a big deal - Asgard and the whole deal could easily be contained within a Thor movie. But when you combine it into the science-oriented world of Iron Man, it might distance us in a way that we wouldn't expect and couldn't have predicted from Favreau's movie.

I think some of you guys have become so comfortable with the concept via comic books that you can't appreciate it from an outsider's perspective. Simply saying people will buy it "as long as it's good" (as Agent of Chaos said) is stupid. Making it good is inherently about making people buy it.

It's always weird to me when movie fans pass off their own lack of imagination as the limitations of a character. Just because one doesn't see the possibilities of a character doesn't mean that qualified professionals have the same problem.

But if you want an easier, linear answer for your Ant-Man dilemma - he also gets really big. Enjoy the movie.

Does he then gain the power to communicate with giants? Because that would be great.

I have no issue with Ant-Man (and his abilities) or any comic/superhero character in a stand-alone.

It's just when they start crossing over some of the more bizarre ones (with established film tones and rules) that it gets a bit trickier. On the page, all the characters are "flattened" and "unified" by the art and color choices/style, comic logic and history.

THE MASK (with his cartooniness and magic) worked just fine in his own flick, but I would have a tough time reconciling if he guest-starred in a TERMINATOR franchise entry.

EDIT: Group superhero films like X-Men, F4, The Incredibles all share one thing... a unified origin. And in single-hero flicks, coincidence and disbelief gets pushed just so they can have a new villain origin (sometimes multiple) with every franchise entry. If the right tone is established and the plot isn't too dumb, the audience can buy into that. Start throwing together a larger group with diverse origins (THOR VS IRON MAN) and I can see some people struggling.

Thor's supernatural origin doesn't seem such a dealbreaker to me. Especially if they include another character with supernatural powers to show that magic also exists in the Marvel Universe.

Of course if they wanted to tone down Thor's origin they could always trot the Crystal Skull alien excuse out. 'He's not a god, he's an extra-dimensional being'. Supernatural issues resolved with one big, lazy stroke.

That would pose the problem of Thor not actually being Thor, though.

By the Power of Grayskull!

It's not that I don't see where you're coming from, DaveB, but I really think you're nitpicking. The average audience member just sees it all as fantasy. The geeks are the ones who might get hung up on the fact that one's a god and one's an atomic-powered monster, but they're also used to it from the comic.

Whatever you think of (cough) "LXG", the point is that the audience didn't go "Vampires are OK, but Victorian submarines? TOO FAR!!!" And superhero universes are fantasy worlds just as surely as Star Wars' galaxy is.

This is honestly a big pet peeve of mine. The gospel of screenwriting in recent years is that you can't ask your audience to make more than one jump into fantasy or even SF, hence most movies of the last 20 years containing only one fantastical element. That's probably a good idea most of the time, but it runs directly counter to the needs of a superhero story, and, for that matter, most fantasies. I think it's telling that books and comics are willing to just go all-out and create worlds full of fantasy and SF elements, but the only movies we get these days in the same vein are those adapted from the books and comics. But if audiences can accept a world of Hobbits AND wizards AND magic rings AND elves, why can't they accept a world of gamma-powered monsters AND Asgardian deities? Because it looks sort of like our world? I don't buy it. "Movie land" (especially in SF movies) is never really the same as the real world, and once you put the Hulk in there, maintaining pure realism doesn't seem like it's an option.

There are degrees of suspension of disbelief, Prankster. Hobbits and wizards and elves are all part of the same fantasy world, and there's some of that . The problem with Thor is that there is already a world established in Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk, one that is clearly supposed to be very similar to our own, and that has no indication of Asgardian polytheism going on behind the scenes. Throwing it into the mix just raises so many questions that, speaking personally, I would find distracting.

Also, I'd hazard to say that comics embracing of the all-encompassing universe and crossovers of characters whose concepts don't really jibe together has had a hand in preventing them from being embraced or taken seriously by a wider audience.

I don't think this is generally understood among non-fanboys, though. Joe Average probably interprets the events of Iron Man as anomalies in an otherwise real world. There's little suggestion that, while this is going on, there's a movement toward mutant registration, a web-slinging hero protecting New York from super-powered villains, an impending Kree-Skrull war, various plots by Asgardians/Olympians/demons, an island owned by a criminal mastermind in an iron mask, etc. In comics, it's far clearer that all of this stuff is happening in a fantasy world, and that isolated events are not simply fantastical occurrences happening in something that closely resembles our world.

That's not really true, though. When you boil X-Men and Spider-Man down to their core concerns, you can pull them off without mysticism. When you're dealing with Iron Man, the Hulk, and Captain America, you don't really need to involve magic. It's only when you cross-pollinate that it becomes necessary to offer explanations for both a genetically altered mutating green giant and a hero whose very presence could probably challenge the foundations of religious belief (and disbelief) and a rational, scientific view of the universe worldwide.

Like I said above, I don't think it's impossible, but some of you think it's going to be as simple as saying "this guy wears an armored suit, and this guy is a god" for a general audience to get on board with this idea. I think it's an underestimation of the public to assume they'll just go with the flow on this without having some big questions on how it works. Wouldn't the presence of real magic or a god on Earth challenge Stark's or Banner's scientific conception of the universe?

This is largely because a lot of sf/fantasy books and comics are, frankly, silly. It's one thing to read something, it's another thing to see it portrayed with real actors and to hear exposition that, if handled just as it might be in a comic or novel, will sound utterly ridiculous.

Maybe not if Favreau's Iron Man had been initially established in a wacky universe where all kinds of crazy magic stuff already went on. But the precedent was set, and the setting doesn't look very different from our world. Just because genre "movie land" is always fantastical in some respect doesn't mean that you'd accept dinosaurs in The Terminator (which is, in some ways, more outlandish than Iron Man) or that you'd simply buy robots in LOTR. There's a tacit agreement between creator and viewer that will allow for certain stretches, but not for others. It takes skill to define and redefine the terms of that agreement. You can't just jam a bunch of shit together, shove it in the viewer's face, and say, "Hey, it's all fantasy! Anything can happen!"

DaveB, perhaps audiences will welcome a Thunder God in the movie if the chosen villian(s) in the movie turn out to be somewhat fantastical themselves?

Wouldn't it be easy to simply write off Mjolnir, Thor's Hammer, as some piece of tech he got his hands on and that it allows him to control lightning to some extent? It's flimsy, but it's a real world application to his main power. And if he wants to fly, just give him some repulsor boots.

I agree wholeheartedly. This is ridiculous and nerdy.

Just have Thor be the pompous comic relief. Like J Peterman in SEINFELD.

Yeah, that's one reason why I think it's going to be a challenge to bring the character into the real-world based universe of Iron Man.

Maybe, but I think it's interesting to discuss how suspensions of disbelief are built in film and how far they can be stretched before breaking. Just because this conversation's structured around a superhero movie doesn't mean the subject is, in itself, silly.