Ant-Man (film)

"My days of breaking into places and stealing shit are over. What do you need me to do?" "I want you to break in a place and steal some shit."

- Scott Lang and Hank Pym

Ant-Man is a 2015 superhero film, based on the Marvel Comics superhero of the same name. It is the twelfth installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the sixth and final installment of Phase Two. The film was released on July 14, 2015 internationally and on July 17, 2015 in the United States.

The film is directed by Peyton Reed and stars Paul Rudd as Scott Lang/Ant-Man, Evangeline Lilly as Hope van Dyne, Corey Stoll as Darren Cross/Yellowjacket, Michael Douglas as Hank Pym, Michael Peña as Luis, Bobby Cannavale as Jim Paxton, Judy Greer as Maggie Lang and Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson/Falcon.

A sequel, Ant-Man and the Wasp, was released July 7, 2018.

Synopsis
Armed with the astonishing ability to shrink in scale but increase in strength, master thief Scott Lang must embrace his inner-hero and help his mentor, Dr. Hank Pym, protect the secret behind his spectacular Ant-Man Suit from a new generation of towering threats. Against seemingly insurmountable obstacles, Pym and Lang must plan and pull off a heist that will save the world.

Plot
In year 1989, Hank Pym resigns from S.H.I.E.L.D. after discovering the organization attempted to replicate his own Ant-Man shrinking technology, which Pym believes is very dangerous and vows to suppress it.

In the present, Pym's estranged daughter, Hope van Dyne, and protege, Darren Cross, have forced him from his own company, Pym Technologies. Furthermore, Pym is more devastated when Cross unravels his own project; an advanced shrinking suit, named the Yellowjacket, based on Pym's original suit.

Meanwhile, a couple of months after the events transpiring in Sokovia, well-meaning burglar Scott Lang has been released from San Quentin State Prison, after serving three years for burglarizing a former employer. He reunites with his former cellmate, Luis, and his two other partners Kurt and Dave, who offer him a position in a burglary; however, Lang exploits his intention about going straight. Furthermore, he learns that his ex-wife has gotten engaged to a police officer, Jim Paxton. His wife also reveals that he cannot see their child anymore if he does not provide child support.

Relentless, and hopeless, Lang inadvertently accepts the burglary job offered by Luis, when he is unable to strike up a job because of his negative criminal records and background. Lang confidentially infiltrates the house where he is supposed to break into, and cracks open a safe, and finds something which he refers to as an "old motorcycle suit". He takes it to his apartment after escaping. He starts toying with it, and wears the suit. Triggering a button, he inadvertently shrinks down to the size of an insect, and struggles to return to his original size. Terrified by this enigmatically frightening experience, he attempts to return it back to the house where he smuggled it from, only to be discovered by the police, and arrested. Pym, the owner of the house which Lang broke into, poses as a lawyer, and smuggles the Ant-Man Suit to Lang's cell to help him break out. Although confused, Lang wears the suit and escapes the prison with the help of a group of ants.

Lang discovers that Pym manipulated him through Luis into stealing the suit as a test, and wants Lang to become the new Ant-Man and steal the Yellowjacket suit from Cross, which Pym considers as an extremely dangerous equipment, literally capable of mass destruction. Pym requests Van Dyne to spy on Cross, and she does so, although resenting her father for their strained relationship and not saying anything about her mother and also not letting her stop Cross. Meanwhile, Lang is trained by Van Dyne and Pym to perfectly control and manipulate the Ant-Man suit that additionally supplies superhuman strength, while teaching him to control ants. Pym sends Lang to a very risky mission, where he steals a device from the New Avengers Facility, originally one of Howard Stark's warehouses, that eventually leads to a fight between Lang and Falcon.

Later, Pym in frustration, tells Hope the truth about the death of her mother, Janet van Dyne; her mother was the counterpart of Pym's Ant-Man superhero identity, the Wasp, who sacrificed herself to prohibit a Russian nuclear launch missile to be activated; in the process, she disappeared into a subatomic Quantum Realm. He admits that he does not want the same to happen to Hope; then the two reconcile.

Cross perfects the Yellowjacket suit, and invites Pym to the unveiling. While the congregation ceremony of the Yellowjacket suit is taking place, Lang, in the Ant-Man suit, along with his crew and a swarm of ants, infiltrates the building. Planting explosives and sabotaging all the servers, Lang is prepared to steal the Yellowjacket Suit; however he is captured by Cross who was expecting this. Cross sells both the Ant-Man and Yellowjacket suits to the international terrorist organization, HYDRA, who has still surprisingly remained, even after the events of Age of Ultron. Lang breaks free from his trap, fights the HYDRA agents and chases after the escaped Cross, though Mitchell Carson, a Hydra agent, escapes with Cross's unstable formula amidst the chaos. Then, the planted explosives planted on Cross's unstable Pym Particle formula detonate, imploding the building into the Quantum Realm.

Cross dons the Yellowjacket suit. Lang traps Cross in a bug zapper, but before he can sabotage his suit, he is tazered and arrested by Paxton. Cross escapes, and holds Scott's daughter, Cassie Lang, as a hostage, to lure Scott to him. They both fight once again but as a last effort, Lang shrinks to a subatomic size to finally penetrate and sabotage the Yellowjacket suit. They both shrink uncontrollably in the nothingness of the subatomic quantum realm, with Cross imploding due to the his suit being damaged by Scott, who smashed through the suits mechanisms and circuits as he turned subatomic. Scott, fighting unconsciousness and after hearing Cassie calling for him, finds the will to escape and puts a disc with enlarging Pym Particle formula inside the suit's regulator and switching it back on, successfully reverting to his original size.

Witnessing the heroism of Lang, Paxton covers up for him, and wriggles him out of serving time. Scott remembers nothing of his experience in the Quantum Realm, with Pym believing the human mind might not be able to process it. Seeing that Lang survived the Quantum Realm, Pym wonders if his wife is still alive. Months later, Luis informs Lang that the Avengers are looking to recruit him, by the suggestion of Falcon.

After Lang's depart, Pym congregates the Upgraded prototype of the Wasp Suit to Hope, offering it to her. To which she replies, "it's about damn time".

A year later, in another location, Captain America and Falcon have found Bucky Barnes. Unable to contact Tony Stark "because of the Accords," Wilson states that "he knows a guy".

Cast

 * Paul Rudd as Scott Lang/Ant-Man
 * Michael Douglas as Hank Pym/Ant-Man
 * Dax Griffin as Young Hank Pym
 * Evangeline Lilly as Hope van Dyne
 * Corey Stoll as Darren Cross/Yellowjacket
 * Bobby Cannavale as Jim Paxton
 * Michael Peña as Luis
 * T.I. as Dave
 * Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson/Falcon
 * Wood Harris as Gale
 * Judy Greer as Maggie Lang
 * Abby Ryder Fortson as Cassie Lang
 * David Dastmalchian as Kurt
 * Martin Donovan as Mitchell Carson
 * Hayley Atwell as Peggy Carter
 * John Slattery as Howard Stark
 * Gregg Turkington as Dale
 * Joe Chrest as Frank
 * Hayley Lovitt as Janet van Dyne/Wasp
 * Nicholas Barrera as Ernesto
 * Carlos Aviles as Carlos
 * Lyndsi LaRose as Emily
 * Robert Crayton as Peachy
 * Danny Vasquez as Ignacio
 * Stan Lee as Bartender
 * Anna Akana as Writer
 * Chris Evans as Steve Rogers/Captain America (uncredited)
 * Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier (uncredited)
 * Cesar Mendoza as Gabriel (uncredited)
 * Jordi Mollá as Castillo (deleted scene)

Locations

 * San Quentin State Prison, California
 * San Francisco, California
 * Milgrom Hotel
 * Pym Residence
 * Pym Technologies Headquarters
 * Maggie Lang's House
 * New York
 * New Avengers Facility
 * Quantum Realm
 * Washington, D.C. (flashbacks)
 * Triskelion (flashbacks)
 * Panama (flashbacks)
 * Berlin, Germany (post-credit scene)
 * Los Angeles, California (on-screen)
 * Griffith Observatory (on-screen)
 * Raleigh, North Carolina (mentioned)
 * Moscow, Soviet Union (mentioned)
 * Kursk, Soviet Union (mentioned)
 * Novi Grad, Sokovia (mentioned)
 * , California (mentioned)

Events

 * Duel at New Avengers Facility
 * Infiltration into Pym Technologies Headquarters
 * Duel at Maggie Lang's House
 * Cold War (flashback)
 * Battle of Sokovia (indirectly mentioned)

Items

 * Ant-Man Suit
 * Yellowjacket Suit
 * Pym Particles
 * Pym Particles Disks
 * Shrink Gun
 * EMP Communication Device
 * EXO-7 Falcon
 * Signal Decoy
 * Wasp Suit
 * Winter Soldier's Prosthetic Arm
 * (flashback)
 * Iron Man Suit (mentioned)
 * Sokovia Accords (mentioned)
 * Sokovia Accords (mentioned)

Vehicles

 * Luis' Van
 * Shrunken Tank
 * Quinjet
 * (Second-generation 1969-1970)
 * (mentioned)

Creatures

 * Ants
 * Ant-thony
 * Giant Pet Ant
 * s
 * s
 * (mentioned)
 * Dogs (mentioned)
 * Dogs (mentioned)

Organizations

 * Pym Technologies
 * Cross Technologies
 * San Francisco Police Department
 * HYDRA
 * Avengers
 * Baskin-Robbins
 * S.H.I.E.L.D. (flashback)
 * Stark Industries (mentioned and logo)
 * Vistacorp (mentioned)
 * Ten Rings (deleted scene)

Mentioned

 * Luis' Ex-Girlfriend
 * Luis' Father
 * Luis' Mother
 * Tony Stark
 * Spider-Man
 * Geoff Zorick

Production
In April 2006, Marvel Studios hired Edgar Wright to direct Ant-Man as part of the company's first slate of independently produced films, buoyed by a $525 million revolving film-financing facility. Wright also signed to co-write the screenplay, based on a comic book series about an electronics expert who can shrink to the size of an insect and communicate with ants via a telepathic/cybernetic helmet, with his writing partner Joe Cornish and to co-produce the film with his partner, Nira Park.

Wright and Cornish originally wrote a treatment for Artisan that focused on Scott Lang as a burglar. Artisan, looking for a family-oriented movie, passed on the script. A few years later when Marvel executives Kevin Feige and Avi Arad asked if Wright was interested in writing a script on any of the Marvel titles, Wright offered the Ant-Man script.

In February 2007, Wright reported that the film was in a holding pattern while they worked on revising the script. At that time casting had not been started.

In March 2008, Wright told Empire magazine that a second draft of the script was being written. Known for being a comedic writer, the director noted that the film would not be overtly comedic, but that it would be "more of a full-on action adventure sci-fi film but with a comedic element," and that it would not be a spoof. He confirmed that the film portrays both Hank Pym, as the original 1960s character from "Tales to Astonish", and Scott Lang as his 1980s/1990s successor in the Ant-Man role.

Wright said the story is very character-driven, and a new twist on an origins story. As part of his writing he researched nanotechnology.

In May, 2012, a "teaser" image of the movie was presented via Twitter by writer and director Edgard Wright. Feige stated as well that the movie was "as close as it’s ever been".

On June 28, 2012, it was revealed that Wright had filmed a Test Reel for the film.

On October 15, 2012, Marvel and Disney announced that Edgar Wright's Ant-Man would hit theaters on November 6, 2015.

On January 25, 2013, Kevin Feige confirmed that the film will be apart of Phase Three of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and will be the film to begin the 3rd phase.

In September 2013, Disney moved the film's release date from November 6, 2015 to July 31, 2015.

In October 2013, Wright tweeted a photograph from the production of the June 2012 test reel with the caption, "Now I'm back in LA, it's high time to finish a little something I've been working on".

On December 18, 2013, Paul Rudd was cast as the lead character, but it was not revealed which version of Ant-Man he will portray.

On January 13, Michael Douglas was cast as Hank Pym and Rudd was confirmed to play Lang. Also in January, Disney changed the release date once again, moving the film up to July 17, 2015 from July 31, 2015.

On February 6, 2014, Evangeline Lilly was announced to be in talks to play the female lead in the film. It was also confirmed that Michael Peña had been cast in an unspecified role.

On May 23, 2014, Edgar Wright announced he would be leaving as director of Ant-Man due to creative differences with Marvel. Variety reported that Marvel knew who they wished to have as a replacement but had not yet begun negotiations.

On May 30, 2014, Adam McKay was asked by Marvel Studios to direct Ant-Man, but he decided to focus on other projects.

On June 7, 2014, Peyton Reed was announced as the new Director of the film. Also in June, Corey Stoll was revealed to be playing the antagonist Darren Cross.

Around July 25, 2014, Patrick Wilson, Kevin Weisman, and Matt Gerald decided to leave the film, citing scheduling conflicts.

On August 18th, filming for Ant-Man began.

On December 5th, principal photography for Ant-Man ended.

On January 2nd, 2015, Marvel announced that the first trailer would air with the premiere of Agent Carter in a miniature video.

Music

 * Ant-Man (soundtrack)