When Ant-Man arrives in theaters next month it will mark the official end of Marvel's Phase Two, and hard as it may be to believe, things are only getting busier. Black Panther, Doctor Strange, Spider-Man, Captain Marvel, and more are all coming in the next couple of years and that's excluding the sequels that will tie everything together. But this is also perhaps the most uncertain time for Marvel in quite awhile as many of these new characters are unproven and have niche audiences.
Perhaps the two oddest properties on the way are Doctor Strange and Ant-Man, and Marvel honcho Kevin Feige suggests that weirdness will connect the films in a very unique way....
"We send Ant-Man on a very weird, mind-bending journey at the end of Ant-Man. It was something we hadn’t seen in a shrinking movie before, but it also represents the tip of the mind-bending weirdness we’re going to do in Strange, which I think will surprise people."
It sounds like Ant-Man could be headed into the Microverse or something. Perhaps to find the original Wasp, Hank Pym's wife Janet Van Dyne? At a recent press event, Kevin Feige confirmed the character's future importance, saying "We have plans for her in the future, and we see that not-so-subtly in this film [Ant-Man]." But does he mean we'll see Hope Van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly) become the Wasp? Probably, but maybe not.
Going back to Doctor Strange, which we know will star Benedict Cumberbatch as the titular Sorcerer Supreme and possibly Chiwetel Ejiofor as the villain Baron Mordo. The most surprising casting has to be Tilda Swinton, who will take on the role of their mystical mentor, the Ancient One. Feige spoke with Birth.Movies.Death about the decision to cast Swinton as a character traditionally depicted as male.
"As we were developing this film we looked at The Ancient One as a mantle more than a specific person. The sorcerers have been around for millennia, protecting us from things we didn’t know about until this story. There have been multiple [Ancient Ones], even if this one has been around for five hundred years, there were others. This is a mantle, and therefore felt we had leeway to cast in interesting ways."
Cumberbatch, Swinton, Ejiofor: Marvel has never had a problem getting great actors for their movies (dude, they had Robert friggin' Redford in a Captain America flick) but Doctor Strange has the best cast they've ever assembled and casting isn't close to complete.
Speaking of casting, Marvel and Sony finally pulled the trigger in deciding on Tom Holland as their new Spider-Man. While the webslinger will debut in next year's Captain America: Civil War, he'll feature in a solo movie directed by Jon Watts (Cop Car) in 2017. What we know is that this version will vary from previous Spidey films in that it will largely take place in high school, emphasizing the character's youth. Feige says the emphasis will be on building Peter Parker's supporting cast to flesh out his world, while drawing inspiration from the classic high school films of John Hughes...
“It’s the soap opera in high school, and those supporting characters, that are interesting. Just as we hadn’t seen a heist movie in a long time, or a shrinking movie in a long time, we haven’t seen a John Hughes movie in a long time. Not that we can make a John Hughes movie - only John Hughes could - but we’re inspired by him, and merging that with the superhero genre in a way we haven’t done before excites us.”
He also says they want to use "villains we haven't seen before", so don't expect to see Elektro, Rhino, or the Lizard. What about the Green Goblin, though?
Ant-Man opens on July 17th. Doctor Strange opens November 4th 2016, and Spider-Man's solo movie hits theaters July 28th 2017. [via CBM]
