Marvel has been ramping up anticipation for the first trailer of its Ant-Man movie, first posting “ant-sized” and “human-sized” 17-second teasers of the preview, followed by a poster for the film in which the hero is the size of the insect he’s named after.
These teasers were timed to roll out shortly before the full Ant-Man trailer was set to debut during Tuesday’s two-hour premiere of Marvel’s Agent Carter miniseries on ABC. Here is the first look at the film, starring Paul Rudd as the title character and Michael Douglas as his mentor and benefactor.
Additionally, Rudd in his Ant-Man costume is on the cover of the next issue of Entertainment Weekly. It’s called a marketing blitz, true believers!
What’s intriguing about this Marvel movie is that the main character is basically an anti-hero, even more so than Tony Stark and Iron Man. Rudd plays Scott Lang, a thief and tech whiz who gains a chance at redemption with the help of Douglas’ Hank Pym, who has invented technology that allows people to shrink to the size of insects and may also have played a role in the creation of The Avengers.
Originally set to be directed by Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz), creative differences led to Marvel hiring Peyton Reed (Bring It On, Yes Man) to take over the film. Personally, I’ve always thought Ant-Man was a pet project of Wright’s that Marvel never would have made on its own. But when Wright balked at making the movie fit with the other Marvel films, the process was too far along to pull the plug on, so the studio kept the machine going.
Ant-Man will hit theaters on July 17, 2015.
