With last year's Guardians of the Galaxy, Marvel proved that it can even turn comics that many of us have never heard of into blockbusters.
Ant-Man, which opened in North America last week to sold-out cinemas, is another success. All the more so, because Paul Rudd – yes, that understated comedian from Anchorman – has been asked to don a superhero costume. He gives the role a genuine comedic touch that, combined with a robbery/thriller narrative, makes Ant-Man seem like a superhero version of classic Ealing comedy The Ladykillers.
Rudd says he spent a year getting into latex-ready shape.
“I didn’t do anything for a year,” he tells me. “No carbs or sugar. I worked out. I basically made health and fitness the focus of my time. I was miserable to be around for a year. I thought if I was in good shape, I would feel less like an impostor in the role.”
Rudd also came on board as a scriptwriter for the film, which had a turbulent production history. A decade ago, Edgar Wright, the British director of Shaun of the Dead, approached Marvel films guru Kevin Feige with the idea of making a heist movie featuring Ant-Man, a character that had not featured in Marvel's plans for creating its own cinematic universe.
For years, Wright and his scriptwriter partner, Joe Cornish, worked on the script and were attached to the project. All the buzz was about how excellent the script was and that it would be a unique film. Then, just as production was announced, Wright and Cornish left the project and Rudd and Adam McKay (Anchorman 2) were asked to rewrite the script.
Peyton Reed, who directed Bring it On (2000) and Down with Love (2003), was given directorial duties. Yet, rather than ditch Wright's and Cornish's work, it was used as the foundation for the final version of the film.
“It’s fair to say that there might not be an Ant-Man movie without Edgar and Joe,” says Reed. “They came up with the idea of making it a robbery movie – Hank and Scott as mentor and pupil, and the idea of a film where the whole movie drives to a third act, where the good guy and bad guy have a fight that takes place in a little girl’s bedroom. Genius.”
What Rudd and McKay brought to the project came from the comments and the need to place Ant-Man into the wider context of recent and upcoming Marvel Avengers films.
“Adam and Paul started doing rewrites,” says Reed. “Adam and I were kids who grew up reading comics and there were some elements that had been in comics that had not made their way to the script. So we brought them on.”
There was also the inspired casting of Michael Douglas as Hank Pym, and that meant expanding the role of the original Ant-Man from the comics. In the film, he has given up superhero work and is still mourning the death of his wife. His daughter, played by Evangeline Lilly, still does not know the truth about her mother’s death.
“Hank Pym was a complicated character and we had a complicated man playing him, and it’s fair to say that Michael has made a career out of playing characters with a lot of grey area,” says Reed. “Really, to deepen that character was an idea that always appealed to me.” Douglas was intrigued by the prospect of doing a different kind of film than any other he had done.
"I was not a comic guy," says Douglas, 70. "They were kind enough that, along with the script, they sent me a leather-bound copy of two years of Ant-Man comics. Reading them, I was looking at Hank Pym – scientist, warrior – who created this beautiful factory, his wife and coping with her loss, and there was more back story for Hank Pym than many of the more realistic films that I've done in my career.
“I was excited by the opportunity because I hadn’t done something in this milieu before. Nearly all the movies I’ve done are contemporary. I’ve never done a special-effects movie. I respect any actors working with green screen. Paul was the anchor for the entire picture and made all the actors feel welcome, even if he gave himself a lot of good lines.”
Ant-Man is poised to become an integral member of the Marvel Universe – the next time we see the character will be alongside some of The Avengers. Rudd has a role in the forthcoming Captain America: Civil War, and his excitement is palpable: "It was on that set, seeing Iron-Man and Captain America in person, that it made being Ant-Man feel real in a way that it didn't while making this film."
Ant-Man opens in cinemas on Thursday
artslife@thenational.ae