Photo: Ben Rothstein ©Marvel Studios 2018
Yes, I love watching Paul Rudd on screen, and I might just have a little crush on Michael Douglas, but I know that the REAL genius behind any film is the person who’s vision and skill gets transformed from an idea to that movie that I get to enjoy as I sit in the theater…the DIRECTOR. We’ve all sat through our share of BAD movies (ROAR), and great ones, and I know YOU’D rather sit through an enthralling, fun, fast paced, movie.
When we sat down with Peyton Reed after screening Ant-Man and the Wasp we went for the obvious first…THE END.
It was a great movie and then what?
Separate them in your mind.
It was not completely planned in the beginning. We knew we were gonna have to deal with that thing at some point in some way. We knew that our movie was gonna take place, not only as a sequel to Ant-Man but also to Civil War because we couldn’t ignore what Scott Lange did in that movie, but we weren’t always sure how we were going to fit into the larger timeline with regards to Infinity War. Somewhere during the process, this idea occurred to us.
Please talk about the imagery in the Phantom realm.
I think there was a concerted effort in the first Ant-Man and in Dr. Strange to kind of start embracing that psychedelic aspect of the Marvel Comics, which is always part of the Marvel Comics since the ’60s, but had not really been explored in the MCU. There are different dimensions and hopefully, they’re all gonna sort of serve different purposes in the future. With regards to our movie, it was something where we were trying to figure out what we were gonna show and how we were gonna deal with the plots around it. We had to key off what we saw in the first movie, but we wanted to show the audience a little more.
It was really fun to sort of design what that could look like dramatically, how it would work, but then it also had to fit into the rest of our movie which is, compared to some of the other Marvel movies a little more grounded. It takes place in our world not in Outer Space or Asgard or something like that, so it had to have a reality to it too. So, it was a huge challenge to sort of start to visualize the concept around it but really, really fun.
Photo: Ben Rothstein©Marvel Studios 2018
What’s coming up in the next installment?
I have to be so careful. Wasp is gonna shoot me in the neck, with a gun absolutely. I don’t know if it’s a real threat but to me, the whole idea of the Spoilers thing is that there are certain things that you want to keep secret and there’s an exhilaration as an audience to experience something. It’s so rare now to see a movie that you know nothing about. It’s kind of a lost art.
But, even as a kid, like I had a love/hate relationship. When “The Empire Strikes Back” came out, the novelization came out two weeks before the movie opened and I couldn’t wait. I read the novelization and I learned the revelation about Darth Vader, but it didn’t really spoil my enjoyment of actually two weeks later seeing the movie. But still, there are certain things I think that are predetermined that we’ve all talked about, and then there are things that we’ve talked about that could possibly happen, or wouldn’t it be cool if?
I think one of the fun things about the Marvel Universe is that I think Kevin has a larger plan but that plan is extremely fluid. People always ask what did you have to do in this move to pay off the other thing? His general philosophy, at least with the Ant-man movies has been make them as stand alone as possible and whoever the Directors are in the next movie, they’re gonna have to deal with the ramifications, which is kind of nice. But, there’s a fluidity, and I think it’s the idea of like whatever makes for the best character arcs and the most interesting and maybe surprising thing, wins.
I know I’m dodging your question but, I think it is sort of leaving things open ended and I know that what I want to do with those characters and stories that I want to tell and how we progress the characters. In this movie it excited me as we talked about putting Wasp at center stage and really telling that story. This whole movie is really about are they gonna be? Does she need him as a partner? Are they gonna be able to work as a partnership? I feel like this movie really answers that question, and the possibilities are really endless.
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