Beware of spoilers from Ant-Man
A lot of things happened at Marvel Studios this last week. The Creative Committee was, according to some reports, disbanded, and Disney changed who Kevin Feige reports to. Ike Perlmutter no longer makes the decisions. Perlmutter has supposedly treated people poorly as a representative of Marvel, but we don’t know what this will mean in the long run. Therefore I chose to write about something else instead – are we getting an Ant-Man sequel?
Marvel Studios has a lot of superhero films in the works, and a lot of actors under contract – but not many people thought they’d have Paul Rudd as Ant-Man and Evangeline Lily as the Wasp. But here we are – and Ant-Man is a success in more ways than one.
Let’s look at the critical and audience reaction. I gave Ant-Man a 7.9 out of 10 in my review, stating that it was: “a fun, personal, heist film” – people seemingly agreed with me. At Rotten Tomatoes it is Certified Fresh at 79%, and the audience score is at 90% at the time of writing. On Metacritic it is currently at 64 – meaning that it received generally favorable reviews. And, finally, its Cinemascore is an A.
Meanwhile, Marvel Comics have a great comic book about Scott Lang, written by Nick Spencer, with art by Ramon Rosanas. Ant-Man – Scott Lang – is getting great reactions from comic book fans, moviegoers, and critics alike. So why hasn’t a sequel been announced yet? That’s a tough one. Follow the money.
Guardians of the Galaxy was a huge debut-hit, and reached around $700m worldwide at the box office. Look, Ant-Man was never going to do that. But there are aspects of Ant-Man at the box office that will worry some people at Disney and Marvel. It ‘only’ made $57m in its opening weekend – less than everything but The Incredible Hulk.
But it has made a lot of money. Ant-Man just pushed past Captain America: The First Avenger, and is now looking up at the original Thor (which it shouldn’t get past unless China absolutely loves the film). At the time of writing, Ant-Man has made $383m worldwide – oh, and it just opened in Korea, with Japan and China still to come. Ant-Man will reach $400m, but probably not $449m, which would put it next to the original Thor, and probably make a sequel a safe bet.
But let’s just say that he makes enough money – where would he even fit in? Not anywhere until 2019 or 2020, at the end of Phase Three, or the beginning of a possible Phase Four. The thing is that Marvel has three films a year starting in 2017, and Disney has a lot of other studios to keep in check. I just don’t see where he would fit in, unless they canceled Inhumans, or pre-announced a Phase 4 with Ant-Man 2 as the prologue.
But fear not. We will see Scott Lang again. We already know that he will appear in Civil War, and apparently he has a hilarious scene in the D23 closed trailer. We’ll probably also see him in Avengers: Infinity War pt 1 and 2, but I fear that a late sequel will stop Michael Douglas and Evangeline Lily from having a pivotal part in the Marvel Cinematic Universe any time soon.
What do you think? Sound off in the comments!
I’m Jeffrey Rex
I'm Jeffrey Rex 
There is this strange narrative that Ant-man was a disappointment, just because it wasn’t a surprise hit like GotG. I disagree. The movie did well and there will be sequel in Phase 4 for sure. Until then, we will see more of Ant-man, hopefully making the audience even more receptive to seeing more or him.
Plus, the movie already set up a perfect storyline for one: The search for Janet! In a way, they could do two different sequels by making an Ant-man and a Wasp movie.
Evangeline Lily is currently more or less out of commission because she is (or was?) pregnant, which might be part of the reason why she won’t be in Civil war. In any case, I wouldn’t worry too much. We will see Ant-man and the Wasp in Infinity War for sure, so the gap is not as long as it seems. Michael Douglas…well, he was only contracted for one movie, but he is ready to do more, so no worries there either.
Thanks for the comment!
Ant-Man made money, and more than Captain America 1 did, so it was definitely not a failure. Ant-Man was a great film, it should get a sequel – but it probably won’t be anytime soon.
Hopefully, Rudd and Lily will be given time to shine when the original batch of hero-contracts end.
I think they will renew at least some of the contracts…I certainly would be happy about more Black Widow and more Captain America. But we will see.
I’m thinking they’ll retire the Iron Man character for a phase or two if Downey still doesn’t want a new deal. I’m pretty sure we’ll see Widow and Cap for quite a while. Especially now that Evans said he’d like to extend his deal.