Michael Douglas On Edgar Wright’s Departure From Marvel’s Ant-Man

Academy Award-winning actor Michael Douglas (“Wall Street”) chatted with Entertainment Weekly to discuss his upcoming western-thriller Beyond The Reach and they slipped in a few questions about Ant-Man. For Marvel, Douglas will be playing Dr. Hank Pym, who will be a mentor to Paul Rudd’s Scott Lang and the inventor of the Ant-Man suit.

Douglas has been a huge star for many decades, and you would figure at some point during his career he would’ve been offered a role in a superhero film, right? “No. I can’t say I was really offered anything in those vein,” Douglas told EW. “I certainly enjoy it now. For me, it reaches another audience, people who maybe aren’t familiar with me. It’s fun to do a big-budgeted movie after scraping and scratching along with a lot of these indies, these labors of love. To be in a picture that’s got a built-in audience and has the tide going with you. I’m ready for it, after struggling and fighting for pictures that you believed in, that are maybe off the beaten path.”

Douglas will certainly get some exposure to a younger generation that isn’t familiar with him since he mainly did a lot of R-rated films like Basic Instinct. Part of that younger demographic will be Douglas’ youngest children who are very excited about his Marvel role. “Oh, it’s like I haven’t done anything in my life before Ant-Man,” he said. “There are so few movies that I could show them when they were growing, because all my pictures were R rated. For years, they thought their mom was the actress and I made pancakes.”

When Douglas signed on to do Ant-Man, Edgar Wright (“Hot Fuzz”) was set to direct the film, but as you know he unexpectedly departed the project and was replaced with Yes Man director Peyton Reed. Did that change have an effect on Douglas? “Not really. I wasn’t directly involved with the script,” Douglas stated. “As far as Hank Pym, that was pretty established from the comic books. For me personally it didn’t [change]. I’m sure tonally and everything for Paul [Rudd]—it’s never pleasant and never easy when those changes happen. Though I think they made it as smooth as possible.”

Marvel’s Ant-Man hits theaters July 17, 2015.