Hawkeye and Ant-Man Will Probably Join Forces!

I was provided on an expense paid trip to the Ant-Man press junket in California. This is where I interviewed Ant-Man’s Peyton Reed and Marvel’s Kevin Feige.

Hawkeye and Ant-Man Join Forces

It isn’t everyday you get to sit in the room with the President of Marvel, Kevin Feige and the Director of Ant-Man, Peyton Reed! I have had the opportunity to meet both of them previously but never together! As a Marvel fan, I wanted to make sure I asked them a question that really interested me. What Marvel superheroes will we see team up together in future movies. After watching Avengers, I got a new love for Hawkeye and you can do anything but LOVE Ant-Man! Paul Rudd nails that role and plus some! So in the interview I had the picture above of Hawkeye and Ant-Man on my computer screened. I turned it toward these two amazing, talented, and creative men and asked, “When will we see Hawkeye and Ant-Man join forces?” You can see the wheels in Kevin Feige’s head turning as he noticed Peyton realizing the image that he is looking at while I was asking the question. This will definitely be an interview moment that I won’t ever forget!

Peyton Reed sees the image and asks, “Is that Ant-Man with Hawkeye in his arrow? That is awesome!” It is what Kevin Feige responds with that will get every Marvel fan goose bumps:

“That is a great image. I love that image. Usually images I love find their way into movies. So. That is one of the things when I started on the Ant-Man was just pouring through the old comic books and finding images that I loved as a kid, or that appeal to me now like “Oh that’s,” you know, “That’s a cool use of the power that’s gotta find its way into the movie.” And those are the kids of images that they’re really iconic and I think in some of the first Ant Man things he had in his headquarters a slingshot system where “How does Ant Man get across town?” and it literally was like some kind of a rubber band, you know, that did not find its way into the movie. But I love those kind of things, “ continued Feige.

The rest of the interview about Ant-Man was just as great filled with tons of information and if you haven’t seen the movie you might read some spoilers that you were trying to hold off prior to reading.

What it was like to FILM a Marvel superhero that was humorous?

Peyton Reed: “In terms of the comedy, I love the idea that it can have big stakes and have heart but it’s funny. I really like the idea. I wanted to make it sort of a tight, fun movie that hopefully is a repeat movie going experience that makes you feel good and is fun. And in particular when you have Paul Rudd at the center of it, you know, it’s gonna be funny!”

What is it like directing something that is a far departure than you are use to?

Peyton Reed: “It’s a kind of movie that I’ve wanted to do for a really long time and technically it’s a big departure. I mean, there are 1600 visual effects in the movie, it’s a big deal in that regard. But it really is what Marvel does extremely well. I mean, we have Jake Morrison who’s our Visual Effects Supervisor. I spent a lot of time with him and sort of talking about the look of the movie and the realism that we wanted. We were gonna be doing what’s hopefully the definitive “shrinking movie” for 2015. We really wanted it to, unless there are other shrinking movies that I don’t know about…” he clears his throat as the crowd begins to laugh imaging “Honey I Shrunk the Kids” and then continues, “you know, it had to look as photorealistic as possible. And it really had to put the viewer down in that environment. When he shrinks down we were gonna be shrinking the audience down with him. And what would that look like and feel and how are we gonna achieve that? ‘Cause I wanted, you know, if he’s running across a table I wanted to really feel like the texture of the table and all that. So Marvel just happens to employ the top people in Hollywood for doing that and it was a huge education for me in that regard and I loved it. It was, it was, it’s amazing and the stuff that they are able to pull off is, it’s kind of mind-boggling.

Woman’s appeal in the movie

Kevin Feige: “ll of our movies have appealed to both. And I think people still feel, this is our 12th movie so I’m not sure why it still seems surprising. In test screenings oftentimes, the movies are rated higher by the women in the audience than by the men. So when people go, “Oh, you know, these, women don’t usually like these kind of movies,” I go, “Well, that’s not true.” I mean, there are men that don’t like them, there are women that…but it really is a huge huge portion of the fan base now. I don’t know that we sit and go, “Okay how do we make the movie work for us, frankly.” … because we want to make movies that we want to go see.” He continues with explaining, “..we want to see the powerful women because we all have powerful women in our lives. That’s the way of the world. When it comes to Hope it ws a big part of the development of the movie, in particular when Peyton came on board and when Evangeline was about to come on board. The big question was, “Well, why isn’t she in the suit?” She could easily be in the suit and she is easily more capable than Scott Lang.

We then discussed a little bit more about the film and took a group picture! During the interview I wore my Ant-Fan shirt. It was a fan art creation taking Ant-Man and redesigning it. You can find me in the picture below! So if Kevin actually let’s Hawkeye and Ant-Man join forces like I asked previously, you know that I will be sporting this Ant-Man shirt for awhile!

Marvel’s Ant-Man is ALREADY playing in theaters!

The next evolution of the Marvel Cinematic Universe brings a founding member of The Avengers to the big screen for the first time with Marvel Studios’ “Ant-Man” when master thief Scott Lang must embrace his inner hero and help his mentor, Dr. Hank Pym, protect the secret behind his spectacular Ant-Man suit from a new generation of towering threats.