Evangeline Lilly should have been one of the founding members of The Avengers for Marvel's cinematic universe, but Ant-Man and the Wasp director Peyton Reed is determined for her to get her superhero due.
Modern Myth Media caught up with the director amidst the 42nd Annual Saturn Awards (Ant-Man won for Best Comic-to-Film Motion Picture).
Oddly enough, Ant-Man and the Wasp will be the first MCU film with a female character in the title since the inception of the MCU almost ten years ago (Though they've been making snail's paced progress). As Stephen Colbert called it – a sausage fest. But Reed has had a lot of great stuff to say about Lilly and Wasp. He's spoken about the partnership of Scott Lang and Hope Van Dyne before but went into it a bit more for MMM:
It”s something we”re excited about. For me as a comic nerd, I always thought of Ant-Man and Wasp as a team and that”s a lot of what the second movie is really about is how they work together, what their personal and professional relationships are like. To show her finally fully formed in this movie is really exciting. We really get to introduce this character into that universe. I mean we”ve introduced the character, but we haven”t seen her with her full power set and everything, so to me she”s not a supporting character in this movie. It”s every bit as much her movie as it is Scott Lang”s.
Yes! That's what we like to hear! Reed also talked about the joy of working with a lesser-known character.
I always loved that about Ant-Man anyway that he was sort of a lesser known character and a character that in the real world and also in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, people might have really low expectations of him as a hero and he obviously proves them otherwise. I feel the same about the movie. We had an amazing cast- Paul [Rudd] and Evangeline [Lilly], and Michael Douglas and Michael Peña. You kinda can”t lose with that cast.
And they're starting to bring in new actors too. Sharon Stone was recently added to the film, and while most of us are assuming she's playing the original Wasp, Janet Van Dyne (making her Lilly's mother in the film), we at least know for sure she's playing a hero.
Ant-Man and the Wasp opens July 6, 2018 (squished like a bug in between the two Infinity War films) but many fans recently got to see Scott Lang stretch his legs in Captain America: Civil War (to fantastic results). The director is a bit jealous he didn't get to play that particular card first:
Well I was super jealous about a year and change or whenever I knew that that was happening. I was like. ‘Oh my God, they get to do the Giant Man reveal!” I had a little bit of a professional envy going on. But I”m thrilled! I love the Giant Man stuff in the movie. And so many people saw Civil War, I think it”s gonna be great for us. And Paul [Rudd] is so good. I was actually with Paul today, we”re in the writing phase right now. He”s so good as that character and we have so much more in store for our movie.
I'm excited. What about you?