20 facts you might not know about 'Ant-Man'

Way back in the 1980s, Stan Lee went to New World Pictures with the idea of doing a movie based on Ant-Man. If you aren’t familiar, New World was Roger Corman’s production company, which means that Ant-Man film would have been low budget. However, Disney was working on Honey, I Shrunk the Kids at the time, which proved similar enough to possibly have played a role in keeping an Ant-Man movie from getting beyond development.

In the year 2000 (the Conan O’Brien special), none other than Howard Stern tried to buy the film rights to Ant-Man from Marvel. Nothing came of that, but later that year, Artisan Entertainment announced they had a deal with Marvel to co-produce, finance, and distribute several films, including an Ant-Man movie.

In 2003, the British duo of Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish went to Artisan to pitch on the Ant-Man film. Wright actually had the idea of Scott Lang being a burglar who becomes Ant-Man, a concept found in the Ant-Man we eventually saw. However, Wright does not think Artisan ever sent their treatment to Marvel. The following year proved huge for Wright. He and Cornish met with Kevin Feige at Marvel to pitch on Ant-Man again. Also, Wright’s movie Shaun of the Dead came out. That probably helped. In 2006, it was announced that Wright would direct Ant-Man and co-write the script with Cornish.

Wright broke through in Britain with his spoof-heavy TV show Spaced. Shaun of the Dead stands on its own merits, but it is also a spoof of zombie movies. His next film, 2007’s Hot Fuzz, also falls into spoof territory. However, at the 2006 Comic-Con, Wright made it clear that his Ant-Man would not be a spoof but a straightforward action comedy. He also wanted to include Hank Pym and Scott Lang in his movie.

Wright and Cornish worked on their Ant-Man while Wright was busy with what was practically a parallel career. The first draft of the script would be finished in 2008. It was not until January 2011, after Scott Pilgrim vs. the World was released that he and Cornish got to work on their second draft, which would be finished that April. A third draft quickly followed that year. In 2012, Wright shot some test footage, shown at that year’s Comic-Con. Soon after, Wright’s Ant-Man was given a release date of November 6, 2015…and then shooting was delayed so Wright could make The World’s End.

Rumors had it that Paul Rudd and Joseph Gordon-Levitt were up for the lead role in Ant-Man , though Gordon-Levitt dismissed the inclusion of his name as just a rumor. At the time, the talk was that Rudd would be playing Hank Pym, but when he was confirmed for the film, it was in the role of Scott Lang. Considering that Michael Douglas ended up as Hank Pym, that makes sense.

After being at the center of Ant-Man for years, Wright left the film in May 2014 due to creative differences. Apparently, at one point, Marvel had plans to craft a draft of the screenplay without Wright’s involvement, which he reasonably blanched at. As Wright told ScreenGeek, “Suddenly becoming a director-for-hire on it, you're sort of less emotionally invested, and you start to wonder why you're there, really.” Most of his production crew left, putting Marvel behind the eight-ball.

About a week after Wright left the project, Adam McKay was in negotiations to take over. It was a way to help out his friend Rudd, but there was a problem. McKay was also friends with Wright and came to feel awkward about replacing his friend, who had left the project acrimoniously after shepherding it for years. As such, McKay withdrew his name, but he did write on the script, earning himself co-credit for the screenplay with Wright, Cornish, and Rudd.

Still in need of a director, Marvel considered the likes of Davin Wain, Ruben Fleischer, Nicolas Stoller, and Rawson Marshall Thurber. These are all, notably, comedy directors. In the end, comedy director Peyton Reed got the gig. He had previously helmed films like Bring It On, Down With Love, and Yes Man.

Matt Gerald and Kevin Weisman had been cast in Wright’s version of the film, but their parts were cut in the draft McKay wrote, so they did not end up in the movie. Meanwhile, Patrick Wilson was initially cast as Jim Paxton, the police officer engaged to Scott’s ex-wife. However, delays caused by Wright’s exit led to scheduling conflicts for Wilson, so he dropped out and was replaced by Bobby Cannavale.

Rudd said he took the “Chris Pratt approach” to get ready to make the movie, which is to say, “Eliminate anything fun for a year, and then you can play a hero” (h/t Variety). Indeed, in addition to training considerably, Rudd restricted his diet. He got in such good shape that they had to alter his Ant-man costumes to fit his muscles.

Darren Cross, the villain Corey Stoll plays, jokes that the idea of a person being shrunk sounds like a “tale to astonish.” Well, the character of Ant-Man actually made his debut in issue 27 of the Marvel comic fittingly called “Tales to Astonish.”

Wright was looking to make a standalone film — he had been working on Ant-Man since before the MCU even existed, after all — so he did not include anybody else from the Marvel films that already existed. McKay and Rudd were not as invested in making something siloed from the MCU. After watching The Winter Soldier, the two added Sam Wilson to the script in one of their drafts.

Rudd got to wear an Ant-Man costume when filming, but Stoll did not get to join in on the festivities. Reed realized an actual Yellowjacket costume would be way too impractical, so the Yellowjacket suit is visual effects. Stoll wore a motion-capture suit when filming.

Janet Van Dyne, the original Wasp, has a brief non-speaking appearance in Ant-Man. Hayley Lovitt plays her. Lovitt was cast because she had “Michelle Pfeiffer eyes,” and in Reed’s dream casting, he would have Pfeiffer play Janet. Pfeiffer would be cast in the sequel to Ant-Man, also directed by Reed.

Real estate often pops up in multiple pieces of pop culture. Take, for example, the house that serves as Hank Pym’s place. It also served as the Halliwell Manor in the supernatural procedural Charmed.

When Scott gets out of prison and gets a job, it was initially at Chipotle in the script. However, when approached, Chipotle passed, as they did not like how they were portrayed. The filmmakers then realized Baskin-Robbins, as an ice cream shop with bright décor, would make a funny counterpoint to Scott’s time in prison. They agreed and enjoyed the free publicity as a result.

If you are doing a fight scene involving a model train set, you want to use Thomas the Tank Engine. It’s not so simple, though. Reed and the Marvel team met with the people who own the rights to the Thomas character, and they had a lot of stipulations. Thomas had to remain neutral and could not be seen doing anything “evil.” Also, nobody could be tied to the train tracks Thomas was on. Reed was not bothered by any of these stipulations, and apparently, the Thomas people were quite pleased with the final result.

The whole quantum realm thing was not in Wright’s script but was added by Reed. In the comics, this concept was known as the “microverse,” but because of legal reasons, Marvel couldn’t use that in the film. As such, the concept of the quantum realm was created, which became the microverse of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Ant-Man would see its circuitous route end on July 17, 2015, when it was released domestically (notably, a few months earlier than the original date). The film started a little slowly, as its opening weekend at the domestic box office was the second-lowest for an MCU movie then, ahead of only The Incredible Hulk. Ultimately, it earned $180.2 million domestically and $519.3 worldwide. Compared to some of the massively expensive Marvel films, its budget of $130 million to $169.3 million allowed it to make plenty of profit. All in all, Ant-Man is on the lower end of the box office spectrum for Marvel, and three of the films below it were 2021 releases.