Why ‘Ant-Man’ Director Peyton Reed Didn’t Like the Villain Yellowjacket

Peyton Reed is the director of Ant-Man and now its sequel Ant-Man and the Wasp. Looking back on his first Marvel movie-making experience, Reed admits that he didn’t exactly love the first Ant-Man movie’s villain, Darren Cross, aka Yellowjacket.

Reed replaced Edgar Wright as the director of Ant-Man and Adam McKay rewrote the film’s original script by Wright and Joe Cornish. Speaking to io9, Reed says that he felt like Yellowjacket was a leftover piece of that original Ant-Man vision, which was first developed at a much earlier stage in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

“The villain in that movie felt like a bit of a vestige from the era in which that project was started, [which was] around the time of Iron Man 1, where you have an antagonist who has a similar power set [as the hero],” Reed said. “I was hell-bent on doing something different in [Ant-Man and the Wasp].”

And he succeeded. Ant-Man and the Wasp introduces a very different villain called Ghost. During a visit to the Ant-Man and the Wasp set, producer Stephen Broussard discussed the new villain.

“We thought that was a cool opportunity to create a character that was all about mystery and kind of, ‘What are the origins? and ‘What is the backstory? What is the goals and agendas of this person?’” Broussard shared. “It was a great vehicle for the kind of the story you wanted to tell because Ghost in the comics itself was a mystery. So she’s very different from what has come before in the comics but in ways that kind of…Suffice it to say that she is on a path and she is on a mission at odds with our heroes on this journey but of a similar goal, of a similar aim, at the worst possible time for Scott Lang.”

Did you think Yellowjacket was a good Marvel villain in the first Ant-Man movie? Are you more excited about Ghost making her debut? Who is your all-time favorite Marvel Cinematic Universe villain? Let us know what you think in the comments!

Ant-Man and the Wasp opens in theaters on July 6th. Be sure to check out ComicBook.com’s review of the film.

Avengers: Infinity War is now playing in theaters. Other upcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe movies include Captain Marvel on March 8, 2019, the fourth Avengers movie on May 3, 2019, Spider-Man: Far From Home on July 5th, 2019, and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 in 2020.