Marvel Studios dropped a huge surprise yesterday when it was announced that Michael Douglas will play Hank Pym in Edgar Wright’s long-gestating Ant-Man movie, confirming that Paul Rudd (Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues) will indeed take on the role of Scott Lang in the Phase Three film. And hot on the heels of the announcement comes the first comments from Douglas, who has revealed what drew him to the role…
“I’ve been dying to do a Marvel picture for so long,” the actor tells Reuters. “The script is really fun, the director is really good. Dylan (the actor’s 13-year-old son) will love it. He’ll have a picture he can see.” And, asked whether he’s set to feature in more than one Marvel movie, Douglas seemed to indicate that he’s set for a multi-picture dead: “(Marvel) reciprocated well, there are sequels. Who knows?”
Meanwhile, following Douglas’ casting, director Edgar Wright took to Twitter to reveal some plot details… which he’d disclosed to SuperHeroHype back in 2006:
“Well, the thing is that what we want to do, the idea that we have for the adaptation is to actually involve both. Is to have a film that basically is about Henry Pym and Scott Lang, so you actually do a prologue where you see Pym as Ant-Man in action in the 60’s, in sort of “Tales to Astonish” mode basically, and then the contemporary, sort of flash-forward, is Scott Lang’s story, and how he comes to acquire the suit, how he crosses paths with Henry Pym, and then, in an interesting sort of Machiavellian way, teams up with him. So it’s like an interesting thing, like the “Marvel Premiere” one that I read which is Scott Lang’s origin, it’s very brief like a lot of those origin comics are, and in a way, the details that are skipped through in the panels and the kind of thing we’d spend half an hour on.”
So, if we’re going to see Ant-Man in a 60s-set prologue, does that mean we can expect another actor announced as Henry Pym, and if so, who would you like to see playing a younger Douglas? Let us know in the comments below….
Originally published January 14, 2014. Updated November 7, 2019.
