Some of the hottest properties in the world of movies right now are comic book movie franchises. The Marvel Cinematic Universe, Fox's X-Men (and soon to be Fantastic Four) franchise, Sony's Amazing Spider-Man franchise and the DC Cinematic Universe are hugely popular and all currently ongoing. In these unique and ever-expanding movie continuities, more and more characters are being introduced and the three Marvel properties in particular are thriving on this expansion. A veritable army of characters that are either completely new to live action movies or have barely been seen up to now are set to star in future instalments, and that's what this article is going to be looking at. From space villains to heroic human magicians, audiences have got a lot of potentially hugely popular new characters to look forward to the Marvel Studios, Sony Pictures and Fox Studios-produced offerings. With that in mind, here are the eleven upcoming characters in Marvel movies that we are the most excited about (contains spoilers from previously released Marvel movies).
11. Ant-Man
Ant-Man has always been thought of as a very risky property to bring to the big screen. Ever since the late 1980s, when the idea to give the character a live action adaptation was first conceived by Stan Lee, movie-goers around the world have been sceptical about the idea and its potential. However, when Shaun of the Dead director Edgar Wright produced the screenplay and was finally in place to direct the movie, excitement and expectation about the project increased tenfold. Then, when Michael Douglas was brought in to play Hank Pym (the older Ant-Man) and Paul Rudd was brought in to play Scott Laing (the younger Ant-Man), excitement and expectation went categorically through the roof. We had our new Avenger and an A-lister in place to play him. And then Edgar Wright left the project (with the reason given that he and Marvel had "differences in their vision of the film"). We now find ourselves looking forward to a movie - set for a July 2015 release - without a director in place. As a result, most potential viewers of the movie have lost a bit of enthusiasm about the project. However, given the test footage and the years of waiting for this to potentially happen, we're still looking forward to seeing how this bite-sized hero turns out on the big screen.