News Digest

The long journey of Marvel’s genre-stretching ‘Ant-Man’

At long last, “Ant-Man” is here. After assembling the Avengers — twice — and traveling to space with the Guardians of the Galaxy, Marvel Studios’ latest endeavor seems like a decidedly small affair, yet it took the studio longer to bring the incredible shrinking superhero to the big screen than it did to boot up Iron Man, enlist Captain America or nail down Thor for their cinematic debuts. The storied history of the “Ant-Man” film goes back eight years when “Shaun of the Dead” and “Hot Fuss” director Edgar Wright and writer Joe Cornish were originally attached to the project. So did the studio end up with the “Ant-Man” it wanted?

As we had always hoped, this version stands on its own but firmly within the cinematic universe. I’ve had people come out of screenings — women in particular — telling me that it’s their favorite Marvel movie.

Kevin Feige, president of Marvel Studios

Despite his status in comic book history as a founding member of the Avengers, Ant-Man has never stood quite as tall as Spider-Man, Captain America or Hulk in the greater pop-culture realm. “Ant-Man” will be the latest test to see how far Marvel can push the genre following last year’s successful space jump with “Guardians of the Galaxy.” The studio apparently already has big plans for Ant-Man. Paul Rudd will reprise his role in next year’s “Captain America: Civil War,” which depicts a divide between superheroes siding with Cap and those aligning with Iron Man.

'Ant-Man’ is (Marvel’s) 12th film. They haven’t done it all, but they’ve done a lot. They’re creatively hungry to do different stuff. I found that very liberating.

Director Peyton Reed