2. Scott Lang Faces Off Against Mitchell Carson & Secures The Particles - Ant-Man
Ant-Man - which stars comic actor Paul Rudd in what is perhaps his first action movie role - saw miniature hero Scott Lang facing off against Darren "Yellowjacket" Cross in an attempt to prevent the villain from weaponising the shrinking technology that allows him to change his size at will. Cue an epic final battle, the day is saved, and... well, you get the picture. The movie ended on a memorably giddy note, however, with Scott's friend, Luis, suggesting that The Avengers were looking for Scott to join their crew - Marvel fan service at its best. Originally, though, director Peyton Reed thought about ending the movie on a completely different note, with Scott going head to head with one Mitchell Carson, the S.H.I.E.L.D. official who also happens to be an undercover HYDRA agent (and can be seen in Ant-Man's 1980s-set scenes). Reed describes the alternate ending as follows:
"At the end of the movie he gets away and has these Cross particles, and there was a sequence where Ant-Man has an encounter with him. But then for a couple reasons, it felt like maybe we should leave those particles out there. In that original thing, he took Martin Donovan out and got the particles."
Reed is right: the lose-ended nature of this alternate ending doesn't seem necessary; it's far more interesting if the particles remain out there, so it's probably better that the movie didn't culminate on a fight scene with Scott and Carson battling for ownership. Overkill, much?