The Official: Edgar Wright News/Ant-Man Update Thread.

[Advanced Dark]

New Interview w/Wright who talks "Ant-Man"

http://www.moviehole.net/interviews/20070314_exclusive_interview_edgar_wrig.html

Still early on. Looks like 2009 release I'll bet.

 

[maretti]

Hmm could be a visually interesting movie, but are there really any comicbook fans who's just dying to see an Ant-Man movie?

 

[Spider-Fan]

The answer to that would be not many.

 

[Advanced Dark]

^ Who cares. This is Marvel attempt to present the character in a new light to the World...not just to comic book fans. The anticipation for this film will build as production moves along and how popular it is with audiences will really depend on the trailers.

 

[Spider-Fan]

I doubt it is going to get this monster hype. I'll agree he provides a new dynamic into the superheroes on film as far as powers. However, he is not an interesting character (when you take out the dark aspects of his character), has like no villains, and is otherwise hard to market. This movie is not going to generate a whole ton of hype. If there is one character I feel could be come across as too comical, he is it. I don't see this being a mega blockbuster.

This would be a good Jan-April movie (like Ghost Rider or Daredevil), but not a summer blockbuster.

 

[Advanced Dark]

Nobody suggested it would be a "mega" blockbuster but Ant-Man is a Summer release. It's not an Jan-April release and has absoloutely zero chance of being a Jan-April release. I don't think the film will be hard to market at all. The director is good at what he does, and Marvel is handling it's studio films with perfection so far. Should be just as successful as the original Fantastic Four film but for different reasons. FF was mediocre but appealed to the X-Men crowd. Not the comic fan X-Men crowd but the movie crowd. Ant-Man will appeal to the Superhero crowd as well but it's going to be of much higher quality all the way around. I can assure you of that. This isn't Fox controlling the rights to something it doesn't know much about. This is Marvel's baby.

 

[Spider-Fan]

Marvel movie does not equal good movie. It seems you have blind faith in this only cause of the Marvel tag.

I have absolutely no reason to have faith in this being as big as FF. FF had many things for the common man to like, and I am not sure Ant-Man will. Scott Lang and Hank Pym are not Johnny and Ben as far as likable personalities go. All this movie has to market is a power. Nothing else. That is why it won't be a hit.

I am willing to bet you this does not make as much as FF.

 

[Mr. Socko]

HELL NO! Everyone knew who Fantastic Four and Doom was, non-comic fans knew who they were and knew they were cool characters.

Ant Man will probably end up flat out sucking. Just sounds like a reject from Who Wants to be a Superhero.

YAY! Antman! What's his special powers? Can squeeze between cracks in the ground.

Marvel better put no more than $50 Million budget on this trash

EVERYONE and their grandmother will find this garbage to be campy

Then there's his look. Not alot of people knew who GR was but he had an awesome look.

Ant-Man on the other hand is a man covered in maroon spandex with antennas

Even if it were in the hands of Spielberg people wouldn't take it seriously

Just because a giant Spider sells doesn't mean a giant ant will

No one is really looking forward to this, it'll probably come off looking like something that belongs on the 90s Flash tv show

Oh Lord........

 

[Advanced Dark]

^ Actually NO everyone did NOT know who FF was. We're talking movie fans...not comic book fans. I know my kids 5 & 7 didn't know who the hell they were before the movie. Now they're fans. New fans are born every day. Don't assume your age bracket is a representation of the Worlds knowledge either. A huge % of the box office were young males under 18 who did NOT grow up on this franchise. There were no previous movies, no major cartoon series continuing over the past 20 years, no live action TV shows, not very many video games, etc...In fact the merchandise from the first film didn't sell very well. FF is extremely popular amongst comic book fans and anyone over 30 surely heard of them before and can recognize them. That's above the primary demographic though as far as age. Don't confuse comic book fans with the rest of the World. In fact The Avengers is probably just as "unknown" to the average kid out there who doesn't read comics and yes the average kid doesn't read Fantastic Four or Avengers comics...otherwise the print runs would be massive...and they're pretty low. I think the movie did alot for the franchise and FOX did a killer job at creating awareness with their marketing campaign.

Also you're right. At this time not very many people are looking forward to Ant-Man. You know why? Because relative to the population of the Planet not many people visit these superhero internet message boards and sites and they know nothing about this project...yet. It's not coming out till 2009/2010 and nobody is marketing it yet. It comes down to marketing. Just like nobody knew who Indiana Jones was, nobody knew anything of Star Wars or Shrek before the first film. No Ant-Man is not on the same level but that just goes to show how popular something is beforehand means nothing. It's all in the marketing and then in the presentation. I believe given the right release date and moderate competition a Ant-Man film could bring in "up to" the orignal FF levels. He'd appeal to a broader audience than Ghost Rider I can assure you. Alot of parents won't take their kids to a PG-13 film that features a demonic bike rider with a flaming skull that works for the devil...but they would take them to see a shrunken superhero that can talk to ants. You have to think potential. You seem negative about every movie on these boards with few exceptions.

 

[Muze]

HELL NO! Everyone knew who Fantastic Four and Doom was, non-comic fans knew who they were and knew they were cool characters.

Ant Man will probably end up flat out sucking. Just sounds like a reject from Who Wants to be a Superhero.

YAY! Antman! What's his special powers? Can squeeze between cracks in the ground.

Marvel better put no more than $50 Million budget on this trash

EVERYONE and their grandmother will find this garbage to be campy

Then there's his look. Not alot of people knew who GR was but he had an awesome look.

Ant-Man on the other hand is a man covered in maroon spandex with antennas

Even if it were in the hands of Spielberg people wouldn't take it seriously

Just because a giant Spider sells doesn't mean a giant ant will

No one is really looking forward to this, it'll probably come off looking like something that belongs on the 90s Flash tv show

Oh Lord........

speak for yourself. "can squeeze between cracks in the ground." that's like saying that all Nightcrawler can do is teleport. it's not about the powers. it's how they look on screen and what they are used for. as Edgar Wright explained, there are all sorts of Jackie Chan-like moves you can do with this power set and that's before you factor in the insect manipulation. Scott Lang was an electronics expert, a hacker, a single father, & cat burglar. very interesting movies have been told about characters like this one. this one just happens to be able to size-shift and fly around on ants. you likely won't realize how cool this is until you see it on screen. might be easier if you first get over your comic book snobbery. instead of thinking of him as not-Thor, try the main character in Swordfish if he were suddenly given stealth powers to fight back against his antagonist.

 

[Advanced Dark]

Exactly Muze. It's not hard to make any superhero sound pointless if you word it the wrong way.

 

[Spider-Fan]

FF had cartoons and more mass exposure than Ant-Man has, so you are wrong. More people knew who the FF were.

Again, if you want to bet on this equalling FF's take, I am all for it. All Ant-Man has as far as marketing is a power. Not enough to carry it to be a BO hit.

 

[Advanced Dark]

^ Yeah it had more as far as comic books and some old cartoons. No new cartoons came out until after the last film. I'm talking "MASS MARKET". Batman, Superman, Spiderman, etc...all were in major motion pictures, had ongoing tv series of somre sort, Superman has Smallville, etc...FF had NONE of that and neither does Ant-Man. From that standpoint they were equal now FF has a huge edge with the 2nd film coming out.

 

[Spider-Fan]

Where were the Ant-Man t-shirts? I have seen FF t-shirts in popular stores for teenagers and kids, and FF figures done for kids way before the movie came out. Plus the FF appeared on the Spider-Man on going cartoon. That I would call mass marketing, at least more mass marketing than Ant-Man.

Ant-Man has had none of this, thus Ant-Man is at an even lower level than the FF at the time the movie was released.

 

[Leto]

So when Edgar Wright turns Ant-Man into a smash hit, Ant-Man promotional stuff will pop up everywhere and everyone will know who Ant-Man is.

Go Ant-Man!

 

[Advanced Dark]

No...the promotional stuff comes first and with a character like Ant-Man it'll have to be advertised earlier than a hero everyone knows about. If the trailers look good the the buzz will begin. The sequel would greatly benefit obviously from the 1st films success or exposure in the media even more.

 

[Isildur´s Heir]

I find hilarious some poster here that think that this movie will suck and fail, just because his powers are that he can decrease to the size of an ant.
So, it doesn´t matter then story, the character, the direction, the vision....all that matters is the fu**ing powers?

Un-fuc*ing-believable

Me, i´m all for it, as long that is any good.

 

[Muze]

FF had cartoons and more mass exposure than Ant-Man has, so you are wrong. More people knew who the FF were.

Again, if you want to bet on this equalling FF's take, I am all for it. All Ant-Man has as far as marketing is a power. Not enough to carry it to be a BO hit.

if it's an enjoyable movie, why does any of that matter?

Where were the Ant-Man t-shirts? I have seen FF t-shirts in popular stores for teenagers and kids, and FF figures done for kids way before the movie came out. Plus the FF appeared on the Spider-Man on going cartoon. That I would call mass marketing, at least more mass marketing than Ant-Man.



Ant-Man has had none of this, thus Ant-Man is at an even lower level than the FF at the time the movie was released.

that's why they won't advertise it as "Marvel's popular hero Ant-Man has a movie coming!" more likely, the trailer will start with 'from the makers of Shaun of the Dead" or something like that. btw, Ant-Man did appear in the most recent Fantastic Four cartoon. and he'd be sort of well-known to older people because of the Saturday Night Live skit.

 

[Spider-Fan]

I am not saying the movie will suck. I am saying it won't make a profit at a 100 mil price tag. Big difference. Ant-Man cannot be sold that well. I am sorry to all the fans of the great Ant-Man I have offended.

 

[Advanced Dark]

^ Yeah it will.

PS we understand your point of view now Spider-Fan in case you thought we didn't. We get it.

 

[Spider-Fan]

I was responding to a comment someone made about posters who were saying it would suck cause it only has a power. I know I have made my view pretty clear, but I saw fit to shed light into it.

 

[BT18]

hmmm

 

[odiin]

On the point of this movie failing because no one has heard of ant-man. Anyone remember a little movie called the Incredibles? No one had heard of them before hand because they were MADE for the movie, and that grossed over $600 million worldwide. Hell, not many people heard of Ghost Rider and that was a success as well.

Another thing though, and It's inevitable that this has been discussed before, but would anyone be fine with this being a comedy? I know most people get really defensive and say "blah blah blah they need to make a very serious movie and stay very very true to the character" but that's why I feel Edgar Wright is perfect:

Look at Shaun of the Dead for instance, Even though it's a comedy, it's STILL a great zombie film, probably one of the best. Then there's Hot Fuzz which completely lampoons all the "buddy cop" cliche's but is still a good buddy cop movie. Edgar Wright has the uncanny ability of being able to make fun of his subject material and at the same time treat it very seriously, and in that way I can see Ant-Man being a very successful movie. Not stupid successful like $900 billion world wide or anything, but I think people are so spoiled now by all the epic blockbusters that they think every movie has to make insane amounts of money to be considered a success. Edgar Wright could and likely will make this film for under $100 million, therefor it won't need to make a ridiculous amount to be considered successful.

 

[the reel chris]

Odiin, you summed my feelings up perfectly. There's plenty of goodwill left for these huge superhero epics, IM, Cappie, Thor, Sub Mariner etc etc etc, why can't we have a fun and more personal movie from a great upcoming director. I guess Marvel would be considered an "Independent" studio; Ant-Man sounds like one of the best possiblities for an interesting indie-style character flick. Personally, I'd love to see someone with a Paul Giamatti-persona in the role (like Simon Pegg in Shaun), having fun with it. Leave his part in saving the world to when he hits The Avengers.

I got my passes to the local Hot Fuzztival, I'll grill Wright for whatever news I can

 

[Advanced Dark]

^ Great post Chris.