The release of the first official trailer for Marvel’s Ant-Man has given us all a few hints at what sort of hero Paul Rudd’s Scott Lang will be and the sort of obstacles he’ll face. It also gave us our first look at Ant-Man’s powers in action, albeit briefly.
From that trailer, we pulled screenshots and offered our analysis of what we believe is actually going on. We deduced that it’s Michael Douglas’ Hank Pym (the original Ant-Man) who springs Lang from prison and trains him to use the Ant-Man suit; the two then team up to steal something from and/or thwart the evil plans of Corey Stoll’s Darren Cross – a former protégé of Pym’s, now running Pym Technologies. Oh, and Pym’s daughter, Hope Van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly), factors in there somewhere as well.
Beyond those vague details we don’t know much, but with new plot points published in a set report from Entertainment Weekly, we can begin connecting a few dots.
For starters, in our analysis, we guessed Lang would be arrested for stealing something from Pym Technologies that his ill daughter desperately needs, as he does in the comics. According to EW‘s report, however, Lang is arrested for stealing from a company’s CEO who was in turn stealing from its own employees. They also clarify that when we first meet Lang he’s already incarcerated.
It’s only after leaving prison that Lang steals the Ant-Man suit. There’s no mention of why Lang steals the suit, but director Peyton Reed says, “There might be stuff going on that Scott doesn’t know about that’s a lot bigger than him,” and that seems to imply he’s somehow set up to steal the Ant-Man suit.
EW goes on to say it’s this theft that impresses Pym, who then chooses Lang to be his successor. Together, the two plan a heist to steal a version of the shrinking technology and suit that Cross has been developing, called Yellowjacket.
It’s during this heist that Pym’s daughter Hope comes into play, and EW‘s report suggests she’ll be both a help and hindrance to their plans. “She’s not been in her father’s life for a long time,” says Lilly, which implies that while Pym is working this heist with Lang, he’s also trying to build a relationship with his daughter, mirroring Lang’s own attempts at bonding with his daughter.
Family – and fathers and daughters in particular – is obviously going to be a big theme in Ant-Man, but fans shouldn’t fret about the film being light on the action. Reed says the techniques they’ll be using to realize the shrinking abilities of Ant-Man are “very different” and “experimental,” with co-producer Brad Winderbaum adding:
“There are cameras and lenses that make small areas look like the most epic landscapes. Then we’re shooting motion capture with Paul to insert Ant-Man into those environments.”
The short montage of action sequences from the trailer are likely still unfinished, as post-production on these CGI-heavy, superhero movies runs almost up until the film’s release. Still, they give a good sense of the sort of spectacle we can expect, and the varying landscapes will definitely allow Ant-Man to deliver action sequences unlike anything we’ve seen before.
In addition to all the new details concerning Ant-Man‘s plot, EW also shared a few new images, which you can check out below.
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What do you make of these new Ant-Man plot details? Are you excited to see the final results from their use of macro photography and motion capture technology? Let us hear from you in the comments below!
Ant-Man releases on July 17th, 2015.
