Having to follow up Avengers: Infinity War is a huge task, which is being given to Ant-Man and the Wasp releasing July 6th..While we had the opportunity to watch the film which you can read our review here, we also had a chance to talk with the cast of the film and get some insight on the characters.
Joined by other members of the media we were joined by Paul Rudd (Scott Lang / Ant-Man), Evangeline Lilly (Hope van Dyne / The Wasp), Hannah John-Kamen (Ghost), Michael Douglas (Dr Hank Pym), Laurence Fishburne (Bill Foster), along with movie director Peyton Reed and the man with the plan and needs no introduction Kevin Feige.
Some fans may not be aware but Paul Rudd actually worked on the script for the first Ant-Man film as well as the sequel. When talking about his work Peyton mentioned, “ Paul always has the whole picture in mind, both in writing and acting.”
While talking about the work working on the project Paul added, “This has been a collaborative effort, more than anything I’ve ever worked on and to think that I actually wrote it I think would be a gross overstatement. The truth of the matter is, Payton has been working on this for a long time, same with our Stephen Broussard, same with Kevin and in particular two writers Erik Sommers and Chris McKenna who really did a lot of the heavy lifting, I tip my hat to them.”
When asked about the most daunting sequence in the movie, Peyton said that there were quite a few of them but talked about Ant-Man and Wasp being able to shrink and grow and for the movie they wanted to do the same with other objects like cars and building, they really wanted to go nuts with it but it also created some technical challenges. “Maybe, the biggest was, we did a whole car chase that took us through the city of San Francisco and we wanted to do a chase that we simply couldn’t see in any other movie.” He continued, “ We wanted to do all these specific things and make San Francisco a character in the movie but utilize the city and make the chase specific to that movie, the Landmarks, the places like Lombard Street and then it occurred, we might not be allowed to do that but thankfully the city of San Francisco was so cooperative and we really had free reign to do something crazy.”
There was a quick joke made about trying to get Kevin Feige to slip and say something he isn’t supposed to since he never does which led up to the next question, now that we’ve been introduced to the Quantum Realm in two films, will we see more of the Quantum Realm in future films? Kevin Feige responded, “ Without giving anything away, we all love…..these are all storytelling tools, new places. In the first film, we got a glimpse of it in the first film people went through it frame by frame and caught a glimpse silhouette of Janet which was a big story element in the movie, there are things that you see back there that Peyton had put in there, where and how they pay off in the near and far term remain to be seen.” Everyone in the room laughed quick knowing that once again Kevin Feige didn’t slip and give us any juicy tidbit into the future of the MCU.
There was a great moment when a question was asked about who is most competent or knowledgeable in explaining theory Quantum Theory and the Quantum Realm where Evangeline said, “Oh Michael’s the guy,” Which left everyone laughing and Michael Douglas jokingly asked what happened and continued on with the joke saying, “I would have to read the script,” as everyone in the room kept laughing as he continued, “ I know we get very very small, subatomic.”
Ant-Man and the Wasp plays not only a sequel to the first film but also Civil War. When asked about the approach for this film, Peyton started off by saying, “What’s really cool about Civil War was we could not ignore what had happened to Scott in that movie. It gave us an organic jumping off point because my first reaction was about how Hank Pym and Hope van Dyne think about taking the suit and getting involved with the infighting with the Avengers and It really pissed them and off.”
There are scenes in the movie where we get to see younger versions of Michael Douglas, Michelle Pfeiffer and Laurence Fishburne to help establish some backstory and they looked amazing. Michael Douglas was then asked about what he thought about seeing himself digitally younger and what era of Michael Douglas did he think it was? Smiling Michael Douglas said, “I looked pretty good didn’t I?” which got the whole room laughing once again as he continued, ”First of all when we started working on this film I found out that Michelle Pfeiffer was going to be my wife. I’ve been a tremendous fan of hers and I’ve never had a chance to work with her, I was totally ecstatic and then I read the script and find out Michelle Pfeiffer and I will be 30 years younger it made it all that much better. It was a treat.”
Some people might not remember but this isn’t Laurence Fishburne’s first Marvel role. He actually was the voice of Norrin Radd or better known as the Silver Surfer in Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer. Laurence Fishburne has been a fan of comics his whole life mentioning he has been reading comic books since he was 8, a fan his whole life and he really what they’ve with the MCU movies with how they take the source material and bring it to the modern day. “I realized I was working on the lot with Marvel, working on Black-ish at ABC Disney and I thought hey I should go talk to them and say hey what do I have to do to be in the movies. They were kind enough to say, we will think about it and a few week later they were like..hey do you know about this guy and oddly enough it was a guy I didn’t know about. I knew about Hank Pym and the Wasp but I didn’t know about Bill Foster.”
While asked about who Evangeline would like to see Wasp paired with, she mentioned before the movie she would have loved to seen the Wasp paired with the Hulk since she is so small and he is so big but because we see Giant Man aka Ant-Man grow exponentially tall in this film that’s out of the window. She soon added, “I am personally going to continue the rumor and gossip about an all female Avengers going.” This lead to a follow up question to Kevin Feige being asked about how is that going where he responded, Very well, it’s all coming together.” Which left the crowd laughing.
“Originally Wasp was going to be introduced in Captain America: Civil War” said Evangeline, “I never expressed it at the time but secretly I was like hmm…she’s not going to origin story oh well, I’m just stoked to be here. Then I got a phone call saying we decided not to put you in Civil War and there was this moment I could tell there was this feeling in the room and they were like don’t be offended and they said what I would thought they were going to say which was…we really want to dedicate this film to introducing this female superhero and we don’t just want her to be a side note in this larger story and that was so exciting for me. I still didn’t know that there was going to be double billing, that didn’t come til later and that was sent to me as a surprise by email with a screencap of the title.”
It always great to hear so much about the story from those who bring it to life including the surprises and lead up, especially when we can only imagine what Marvel still has in surprise with future releases and seeing how everything will tie together.
Ant-Man and the Wasp releases in theaters on June 6th!