The story of Ant-Man is kind of a small one. Let’s acknowledge that pun and quickly move on. As opposed to characters like Captain America, Thor, or Doctor Strange, he’s not really waging battle on a national, cosmic, or even metaphysical plane; he’s simply trying to get his life back in order and reconnect with his son. Paul Rudd’s Scott Lang is a beleaguered ex-con with questionable morals; he doesn’t feel like a superhero. It’s a personal story. And that’s why director Peyton Reed wasn’t excited to see his character joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe big leagues in Captain America: Civil War,
“I think we like our little Ant-Man corner of the universe,” Reed told Moviefone in a recent interview. “Because it’s a whole different vibe tonally, but also just in terms of who Scott Lang—who Ant-Man—is. He is a guy who is maybe not so sure he wants to be like this Avenger-style, full-on superhero. He’s got a kid, and this is the inner conflict with him, and he’s very much just like a normal guy who has come into contact with some incredible power. So, we like that aspect of kind of like it being its own little corner of the universe.”
To add insult to injury, in the 2016 tentpole film, Joe and Anthony Russo showed off one of Ant-Man’s most spectacular abilities. “When I first found out—gosh, I don’t know, two years ago, a year-and-a-half ago—that Civil War was going to get the Giant-Man premiere, I was like ‘No!’,” Reed says. “I’ve since recovered, and we have a lot more in store for Scott Lang in this movie. We get to see the Wasp debut—we’re all about the Wasp and Ant-Man.”
Ant-Man And The Wasp, due out in the summer of 2018, is still in the writing phase. “[W]e start official prep this month,” Reed says. “So, it’s sort of long-lead prep, but we’re starting to get into all of the visual development stuff, and it’s really exciting.”