Kevin Feige Says Ant-Man Could Be The Antidote For Avengers: Age Of Ultron

On Saturday, Comicbook.com attended a press conference for the Ant-Man movie at the Disney [...]

On Saturday, Comicbook.com attended a press conference for the Ant-Man movie at the Disney Studios lot. Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige shared some of the reasoning behind the Ant-Man movie, and how the film differs from Avengers: Age of Ultron.

What was it about the character of Ant-Man that you thought he would be an excellent addition to the MCU?

Kevin Feige: Well, you know clearly Ant-Man, in the comics, is a founding member of the Avengers. I've said that we have a big, giant poster of the Avengers #1 in all the various offices we've had over the years, and I love looking at that and checking off "that person has been in a movie now", "made a movie about that person", "and about that person".

[Ant-Man] and the Wasp are the two that have been the longest that we haven't done anything with and so it was always clear that we were going to assemble all the Avengers eventually. And it also was interesting to do a movie, that plays with scale and plays with action in a very different way than we have ever done before. And it is, I'm sure you all have heard me say many, many times, I like it when all of our films are unique and all are different and all of them can surprise people.

Now this is our 12th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, so it felt time to do something even more unique and even more different, which I think these people managed.

The father-daughter relationship is an important element in the movie and I was wondering how did you arrive at that, the storyline, and can you talk a little bit about keeping the film funny and upbeat without losing the premise of the story?

Kevin Feige: Well that's right out of the comics. Scott Lang's character has a daughter named Cassie in the comics in his original origin story. In the books, it's tied directly to his desire to help his daughter and that's the reason that he sort of resorts to crime to try and do that. So that came right out of the comics and as I said earlier, we've never had a hero in any of the 11 films leading up to this who's motivation involve a child or involved a son or daughter. So that felt again like a reason to do this film now, which was very meaningful for us.

Was comedy a goal especially in-light with the timing after a darker film like Ultron to have a really funny film following?

Kevin Feige: I don't think we set out and said this will be out funniest movie or this is a comedy. I don't look at any of our films as necessarily one thing, but humor as we always say is a huge element. And when you're dealing with a concept, people riding ants, people communicating with ants, calling ants Antony, you have to acknowledge to the audience that we know this is funny to a certain extent.

And even when we cast Paul, people thought "Oh, is it a comedy because you cast a comedian." We cast a guy we thought could be a kick-ass super hero who happens to funny.

In terms of coming off of Ultron, when we put these two films together in this year, it was always knowing that one could be the antidote of the other. Coming off of Ultron, it would be fun to do something that was funny but also dealt on a very different scale, that had the same kind of thrills and action elements but in a very different way. So it's a flying country in one film and it's a little girl's bedroom in another.

0comments