Michelle Pfeiffer Was Initially Skeptical About ‘Ant-Man’

Fans are excited to finally see Janet Van Dyne, the original Wasp, enter the Marvel Cinematic Universe when Ant-Man and The Wasp opens in theaters next month and while actress Michelle Pfeiffer is excited to bring the character to life, she wasn’t always so sure about the original Ant-Man movie.

In a recent interview (via News 18), Pfeiffer revealed that while she’s been a fan of Marvel films — particularly Spider-Man and Iron Man — thanks to her kids, she had her reservations about Ant-Man.

“My first exposure to Marvel would have been Spider-Man and then Iron Man, both of which I really loved,” she said. “I guess I discovered Marvel through my children. Then I saw Ant-Man, and I really loved it. At first, I thought Ant-Man? I was not familiar with the superhero Ant-Man. But the sound of it I was a little skeptical, but I really was pleasantly surprised.”

Pfeiffer’s reaction to the 2015 film isn’t unusual. While the character Ant-Man, specifically the Hank Pym version, has a long history in Marvel Comics he’s something of a smaller character — no pun intended. Characters such as Iron Man, Captain America, and The Hulk are much more popular and therefore better known outside of comic book fans. And that is especially true for the Scott Lang version followed in the movie.

However, despite Ant-Man being an arguably lesser-known hero, Ant-Man was still a box office success, ultimately bringing in a worldwide total of $519.3 million globally in part because of the smaller scale superhero story it tells. The film was certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, with the critical consensus being that the film “offers Marvel thrills on an appropriately smaller scale” and it’s that scale and associated tone that Pfeiffer said really set Ant-Man apart from the rest of the MCU.

“I’ve always been such a Paul Rudd fan, and the movie was really smart and funny and also grounded in reality in a way that it had this very unusual tone to it that I think set it apart from a lot of the other superhero movies that I had seen,” she explained.

And Ant-Man and The Wasp itself is sent to be of a different tone than the most recent MCU film, Avengers: Infinity War. While Infinity War ended on the dire and distressing note of Thanos snapping his finger and wiping out half of the universe, Ant-Man and The Wasp takes place before those events and is set to be a more humorous film. Pfeiffer told Variety earlier this month that the new film as a great sense of humor, just like the original film.

“It had this great sense of humor about it and just this unusual tone,” Pfeiffer said. “This new script has the same thing. It’s nicely written.”

Avengers: Infinity War is in theaters now. It will be followed by Ant-Man and the Wasp on July 6, 2018. Captain Marvel on March 8, 2019, the fourth Avengers movie on May 3, 2019, the sequel to Spider-Man: Homecoming on July 5, 2019, and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 in 2020.