It is pretty common knowledge that Marvel”s “Ant-Man” had a troubled production. The script languished in development purgatory for years and then director Edgar Wright dropped out just before filming began.
Peyton Reed stepped in to direct, but he also put on his screenwriter hat. With the help of Paul Rudd and Evangeline Lilly, Reed retooled the script. One of those changes was a bolstered character arc for Hope van Dyne. But Reed didn”t just add new story elements; he also had to remove some.
WARNING: MINOR “ANT-MAN” SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT.
The original opening sequence was one of them. In an interview with CinemaBlend, Reed went into detail about the ‘lost” scene:
It was a standalone sequence, where you really did not see it was Hank Pym. He was retrieving some microfilm from, originally Cuban general and then [due to timeline continuity] a Panamanian general… It was designed in early drafts to be almost like a Bond movie standalone scene in the beginning. It was going to show the powers. You never saw Ant-Man. It almost felt like an Invisible Man sequence, and it”s really, really cool.
So cool, in fact, that Reed shot the entire flashback. According to the interview, Jordi Molla was cast as the villainous General Callisto, who could have been related to drug lord Alejandro Callisto on “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” It wasn”t until post-production that it became clear the flashback no longer fit the tone and direction of the movie and was scrapped in favor of de-aged Michael Douglas” tendering his resignation.
However, cutting the scene doesn”t make it magically vanish from existence. It was filmed to completion. It exists. And Peyton Reed floated the idea of using the footage as a One-Shot, similar to the ones Marvel has done for Peggy Carter, the Mandarin, and others.
Personally, I like this idea. Especially if it involves more Matriarch Peggy Carter calling the shots from S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters.
Would you guys watch Hank Pym secret agent his way through the Panama underworld?