A couple of rumors surfaced yesterday in regards to Ant-Man, and they all had to do with the villain side of things. An extended plot description pegged the bad guys as industrialist Darren Cross and his cousin, William, known as the costumed Crossfire. These are the roles Corey Stoll and Patrick Wilson are said to be taking on. And part of the story also revealed that Cross would sport his own armor, yellow and black but more militarized than the Ant-Man suit. At the time it seemed kind of obvious which armor it could be, but Badass Digest has gone ahead and spelled it out by claiming the villain will be Yellowjacket.
Those who know their Marvel history are no doubt aware that Yellowjacket is one of multiple identities used by Pym, largely due to his mental instability. It was as Yellowjacket that Pym famously abused his wife, Janet van Dyne aka Wasp, which of course was blamed on his disorder. It's unlikely Marvel will EVER show the abusive side of Pym so they should be clear to use Yellowjacket in a slightly different way.
Nothing is ever really confirmed until it comes out of Kevin Feige's mouth, and the Marvel Studios prez had some things to say about Ant-Man, Doctor Strange, and the possibility of more Guardians of the Galaxy while talking with Total Film.
Starting with Ant-Man, he discussed how the film is taking shape following Edgar Wright's exit and the hiring of Peyton Reed as the new director...
Feige: "Ant-Man is still going to come out on 17 July [2015], we start filming this August. Edgar Wright, who I've known for many years, who wrote the draft with Joe Cornish - much of the movie will still be based very much on that draft and the DNA of what Edgar has created up to this point, but Peyton Reed has stepped in [to direct]...."Adam McKay, a very good writer is reworking parts of the script - not the entirety of the script, but some of it - and it's going to, we believe, come to life in the best version of Ant-Man that we could possibly make. Again Ant-Man is a very important character for us. We like that people don't necessarily know what it is, we like that it sounds sort of strange when you first hear the notion of Ant-Man, or a hero that can shrink, but he's a very key Marvel character: he's a key Avenger. He's an important character we want to bring into our universe and Paul Rudd, Michael Douglas and an amazing cast all set to start in August, we believe that we're on the road to the best version of Ant-Man that we could have."
He also gave an update on Doctor Strange, which has Scott Derrickson on board to direct. He also alludes to bringing on a new writer, which is presumably the newly-hired Jon Spaihts....
Feige: "Strange is very, very important, not just because it's an amazing character study, and a journey of a man who's gone from this very arrogant surgeon to somebody who is quite zen and literally keeps all of reality together on a daily basis, but it also is going to open up a whole other side of storytelling for our movies. So we're about to hire a writer to redo a draft, and we think we'll be casting probably in the next month or two, and announcing an actor, and then we get into production in the spring of next year."
Guardians of the Galaxy remains Marvel's riskiest gamble,which is why Feige is taking a "wait and see" approach when talking about sequels, but that doesn't mean he's lacking in ideas...
Feige: "So we don't have, necessarily, two or three or four movies planned because if we have a good idea - a fun idea for a scene or a cool character - we put it in this movie because we know if the first movie doesn't work, there won't be any movies after that...."That being said, there are dozens and dozens of Guardians Of The Galaxy storylines - there's a group that came about in the '60s, they were revamped again in the '80s and they changed into this incarnation that you see in this movie about eight or nine years ago - so there are a lot of other characters and worlds and stories. So should this film work, should the audience come out for this one, there are definitely places we can take it and we have ideas of where we'd like to go with it, but really all the energy goes into the first movie first."
Look for Feige to keep a low profile between now and Comic-Con when the real announcements will be made.
