Peyton Reed Promises "So Much More" For Ant-Man And The Wasp
Are we going to see Giant Man again?
It may only be in the writing stage currently, but Ant-Man And The Wasp director Peyton Reed has been teasing some details for the forthcoming sequel. While picking up a Saturn Award for the film as best Comic To Film Adaptation, he spoke to Modern Myth Media to discuss the role of Evangeline Lily's Wasp, the possibility of returning characters and his excitement for the project.
The director was honoured to have received so many Saturn nominations for the film:
"It’s great! I have never been to the Saturn Awards, but I’ve always wanted to and now I have a legitimate excuse to be here, so that alone makes it worth it. It’s fantastic. [Ant-Man] is the kind of movie that I wanted to make for a really long time and to finally have the opportunity is great. The fact that people liked it is even better.”
He also spoke about Civil War's use of Giant Man and his self-confessed jealousy that they got to play with the character first. But there are promises that the Ant-Man sequel will dial it up again (whether that means we'll get to see Giant Man a second time remains unclear, but you'd have to think so after the success in Civil War):
"Well I was super jealous about a year and change or whenever I knew that that was happening. I was like. ‘Oh my God, they get to do the Giant Man reveal!’ I had a little bit of a professional envy going on. But I’m thrilled! I love the Giant Man stuff in the movie. And so many people saw Civil War, I think it’s gonna be great for us. And Paul [Rudd] is so good. I was actually with Paul today, we’re in the writing phase right now. He’s so good as that character and we have so much more in store for our movie."
Discussing where Scott Lang is as a character now in light of Civil War and the Avengers' move underground, Reed discussed the end of that movie as a narrative launching point:
"Well he’s a fugitive in most of the first Ant-Man movie. He’s just a bigger fugitive now. I think that’s one of the fun things and challenges about the Marvel movies for us, for the directors and for the writers, is you do have to sort of consider what happened in the previous movies in terms of your jumping-off point for those characters. It’s something we talked a lot about early on and we definitely have stuff figured out, so there will be some big leaps forward."
Reed says he's devouring comics now for the spirit of his characters as well as story inspiration, but he seems most excited about the chance to push The Wasp out of a supporting role and more into the limelight:
"It’s something we’re excited about. For me as a comic nerd, I always thought of Ant-Man and Wasp as a team and that’s a lot of what the second movie is really about is how they work together, what their personal and professional relationships are like. To show her finally fully formed in this movie is really exciting. We really get to introduce this character into that universe. I mean we’ve introduced the character, but we haven’t seen her with her full power set and everything, so to me she’s not a supporting character in this movie. It’s every bit as much her movie as it is Scott Lang’s."
Incidentally - and not at all surprisingly, Reed also says ther'es a "fighting chance" that Michael Peña will reappear after his fan favourite turn in the original.
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