Ant-Man

Ant-Man is a 2015 American superhero film based on the Marvel Comics characters of the same name. Produced by Marvel Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, it is the twelfth film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the sixth and final film of Phase Two. The film was directed by Peyton Reed, with a screenplay by the writing teams of Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish, and Adam McKay and Paul Rudd, and stars Paul Rudd as Scott Lang / Ant-Man.

Plot
In year 1989, Hank Pym resigns from S.H.I.E.L.D. after discovering Howard Stark's attempt to replicate his own shrinking technology, which Pym believes is very dangerous and vows to suppress it. In the present, Pym's estranged daughter, Hope van Dyne, and protege, Darren Cross, have forced him from his own company, Pym Technologies. Furthermore, Pym is more devastated when Cross unravels his own project; an advanced shrinking suit named the Yellowjacket Suit, based on Pym's original technology.

Meanwhile, Scott Lang has been released from San Quentin State Prison, after serving three years for burglarizing a former employer. He reunites with his former cellmate, Luis, and his two other partners Kurt and Dave, who offer him a position in a burglary; however, Lang exploits his intention about going straight. Furthermore, he learns that his ex-wife has gotten engaged to a police officer, Jim Paxton. His wife also reveals that he cannot see their child anymore if he does not provide child support.

Relentless, and hopeless, Lang inadvertently accepts the burglary job offered by Luis, when he is unable to strike up a job because of his negative criminal records and background. Lang confidentially infiltrates the house where he is supposed to break into, and cracks open a safe, and finds something which he refers to as an "old motorcycle suit". He takes it to his apartment after escaping. He starts toying with it and wears the suit. Triggering a button, he inadvertently shrinks down to the size of an insect and struggles to return to his original size. Terrified by this enigmatically frightening experience, he attempts to return it back to the house where he smuggled it from, only to be discovered by the police, and arrested. Pym, the owner of the house which Lang broke into, poses as a lawyer and smuggles the Ant-Man Suit to Lang's cell to help him break out. Although confused, Lang wears the suit and escapes the prison with the help of a group of ants.

Lang discovers that Pym manipulated him through Luis into stealing the suit as a test and wants Lang to become the new Ant-Man and steal the Yellowjacket suit from Cross, which Pym considers as extremely dangerous equipment, literally capable of mass destruction. Pym requests Van Dyne to spy on Cross, and she does so, although resenting her father for their strained relationship and not saying anything about her mother and also not letting her stop Cross. Meanwhile, Lang is trained by Van Dyne and Pym to perfectly control and manipulate the Ant-Man suit that additionally supplies superhuman strength, while teaching him to control ants.

Pym sends Lang to a very risky mission, where he steals a device from the New Avengers Facility, originally one of Stark Industries warehouses, that eventually leads to a fight between Lang and Falcon. Later, Pym in frustration, tells Hope the truth about the death of her mother, Janet van Dyne; her mother was the counterpart of Pym's Ant-Man superhero identity, the Wasp, who sacrificed herself to prohibit a Soviet nuclear launch missile to be activated; in the process, she disappeared into a subatomic Quantum Realm. He admits that he does not want the same to happen to Hope; then the two reconcile.

Cross perfects the Yellowjacket suit and invites Pym to the unveiling. While the congregation ceremony of the Yellowjacket suit is taking place, Lang, in the Ant-Man suit, along with his crew and a swarm of ants, infiltrates the building. Planting explosives and sabotaging all the servers, Lang is prepared to steal the Yellowjacket Suit; however, he is captured by Cross who was expecting this. Cross sells both the Ant-Man and Yellowjacket suits to the HYDRA and the Ten Rings. Lang breaks free from his trap, fights the HYDRA agents and chases after the escaped Cross, though Mitchell Carson escapes with Cross's unstable formula amidst the chaos. Then, the planted explosives planted on Cross's unstable Pym Particle formula detonate, imploding the building into the Quantum Realm.

Cross dons the Yellowjacket suit. Lang traps Cross in a bug zapper, but before he can sabotage his suit, he is tasered and arrested by Paxton. Cross escapes, and holds Lang's daughter, Cassie, as a hostage, to lure Lang to him. They both fight once again but as a last effort, Lang shrinks to a subatomic size to finally penetrate and sabotage the Yellowjacket suit. They both shrink uncontrollably in the nothingness of the subatomic quantum realm, with Cross imploding due to his suit being damaged by Scott, who smashed through the suits mechanisms and circuits as he turned subatomic. Scott, fighting unconsciousness and after hearing Cassie calling for him, finds the will to escape and puts a disc with enlarging Pym Particle formula inside the suit's regulator and switching it back on, successfully reverting to his original size.

Witnessing the heroism of Lang, Paxton covers up for him and wriggles him out of serving time. Scott remembers nothing of his experience in the Quantum Realm, with Pym believing the human mind might not be able to process it. Seeing that Lang survived the Quantum Realm, Pym wonders if his wife is still alive. Months later, Luis informs Lang that the Avengers are looking to recruit him, by the suggestion of Wilson.

After Lang's departure, Pym congregates the upgraded prototype of the Wasp Suit to Hope, offering it to her. To which she replies, "it's about damn time". A year later, in Berlin, Steve Rogers and Wilson have found Bucky Barnes. Unable to contact Tony Stark because of the Sokovia Accords, Wilson states that "he knows a guy".

Cast

 * Paul Rudd as Scott Lang / Ant-Man
 * Michael Douglas as Doctor Hank Pym / Ant-Man
 * Dax Griffin as Young Hank Pym / Ant-Man
 * Evangeline Lilly as Hope van Dyne
 * Corey Stoll as Darren Cross / Yellowjacket
 * Bobby Cannavale as Jim Paxton
 * Michael Peña as Luis
 * T.I. as Dave
 * Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson / Falcon
 * Wood Harris as Gale
 * Judy Greer as Maggie Lang
 * Abby Ryder Fortson as Kurt
 * Martin Donovan as Mitchell Carson
 * Hayley Atwell as Peggy Carter
 * John Slattery as Howard Stark
 * Gregg Turkington as Dale
 * Joe Chrest as Frank
 * Hayley Lovitt as Janet van Dyne / Wasp
 * Nicholas Barrera as Ernesto
 * Carlos Aviles as Carlos
 * Lyndsi LaRose as Emily
 * Robert Crayton as Peachy
 * Danny Vasquez as Ignacio
 * Rod Hallett as HYDRA Buyer
 * Stan Lee as Bartender
 * Anna Akana as Writer
 * Chris Evans as Steve Rogers / Captain America
 * Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes / Winter Soldier
 * Cesar Mendoza as Gabriel
 * Aislinn Williams as Darby
 * Jordi Molla as Castillo

Development
Development of an Ant-Man film began as early as the late 1980s, when Ant-Man co-creator Stan Lee pitched the idea to New World Pictures, Marvel Comics' parent company at the time. However, Walt Disney Pictures was developing a film based on a similar concept, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, and although Ant-Man went into development, nothing came to fruition.

In 2000, Howard Stern met with Marvel in an attempt to purchase the film rights to Ant-Man. In May of that year, Artisan Entertainment announced a deal with Marvel to coproduce, finance, and distribute a film based on Ant-Man. In 2003, Edgar Wright and his writing partner Joe Cornish wrote a treatment for Artisan, with Wright explaining that it revolved around Scott Lang as a burglar "so he could have gone slightly in the Elmore Leonard route", though Artisan wanted the film to be "like a family thing". However, Wright believed that the treatment was never sent to Marvel. A year later, the duo pitched the film to Marvel Studios' then head of production, Kevin Feige. In April 2006, Marvel Studios hired Wright to direct and co-write Ant-Man with Cornish as part of the company's first slate of independently produced films. Wright would also co-produce the film with his Big Talk Productions partner Nira Park.

At the 2006 San Diego Comic-Con International, Wright said he was intrigued by the story's high concept and character. Wright also stressed that the film would not be a spoof but an action-adventure with some comedic elements and would incorporate both the Hank Pym and Scott Lang incarnations of the character. Wright said that he was looking to "do a prologue where you see Pym as Ant-Man in action in the 60s, in sort of Tales to Astonish mode basically, and then the contemporary, sort of flash-forward, is Scott Lang's story, and how he comes to acquire the suit, how he crosses paths with Hank Pym, and then, in an interesting sort of Machiavellian way, teams up with him." The next February, Wright said that the project was in "a holding pattern" while the script was being revised, and that he had been doing research for the film by studying nanotechnology. In March 2008, Wright said that the first draft of the script had been completed and he was working on the second.

Stan Lee tweeted in February 2010 that Marvel was prepping the film and that he met with Wright for lunch to discuss the character. Wright noted that there was no timetable for the film because Marvel did not consider the character to be one of their bigger, tentpole properties, so "It's more like me and Kevin Feige saying...'Let's make a good script that works, that's all about a great genre film, and that isn't necessarily relying on anything else'". At the 2010 San Diego Comic-Con International, Wright remarked that because his film would be an origin story and would not be released until after The Avengers, the first Avengers film would not include Ant-Man, although Wright acknowledged that the character might appear in future Avengers films. In January 2011, Wright stated that he had resumed writing the script for the film following the conclusion of the international promotion for Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, and by April he and Cornish delivered the second draft of Ant-Man to Marvel. At the 2011 San Diego Comic-Con International, Wright revealed a third draft had been handed in. In May 2012, Feige said that the project was "as close as it's ever been" while Wright teased the film by tweeting a pictogram of Ant-Man. In June, Wright spent just under a week shooting footage for a reel that would be used to test out the potential look and tone of his movie, as well as to decide how convincing Ant-Man's powers look on screen. The test footage was screened to audiences during the Marvel Studios panel at the 2012 San Diego Comic-Con International, with Wright confirming that Ant-Man would be happening. Germain Lussier of /Film felt the footage worked and was "awesome", as "it had a totally different vibe from the other Marvel films. It was much more like something you'd recognise from Hot Fuzz." Lussier, along with Katy Rich of CinemaBlend, also enjoyed the costume design choice. Reed said the costume design was influenced by Asian tokusatsu superheroes such as Ultraman and Inframan. That October, Disney scheduled the film for release on November 6, 2015. Feige stated in January 2013 that Ant-Man would be part of Phase Three of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and indicated in May that the screenplay needed to be modified in order to fit into the universe, as the project had been in development before the first Iron Man film. Feige also stated that shooting was slated to begin sometime in 2014, and that casting would begin towards the end of 2013. In July 2013, Wright said that he and Cornish had completed the script for the film and that Marvel allowed him to delay its production so that he could complete The World's End, as that film's producer Eric Fellner was diagnosed with cancer.

In August 2013, after Joss Whedon, director of Avengers: Age of Ultron, announced that Hank Pym would not be Ultron's creator, Wright said Ultron was never a part of the story of Ant-Man, explaining that "just to sort of set up what Ant-Man does is enough for one movie". Wright described Ant-Man as a stand-alone film but said it would fit into the larger continuity of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, explaining, "I like to make it standalone because I think the premise of it needs time. I want to put the crazy premise of it into a real world, which is why I think Iron Man really works because it's a relatively simple universe; it's relatable. I definitely want to go into finding a streamlined format where you use the origin format to introduce the main character and further adventures can bring other people into it." Wright also stated that pre-production for Ant-Man would begin in October and filming would begin in 2014. The next month, Disney moved the film's release date up to July 31, 2015.

Pre-Production
In October 2013, Wright revealed that he was in Los Angeles to work on Ant-Man by tweeting a photograph from the production of the June 2012 test reel. Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Paul Rudd were soon being considered for the lead role, though Gordon-Levitt dismissed his consideration as a rumour. Feige stated that Ant-Man would be a "heist movie", and that a casting announcement for Hank Pym would come before the end of 2013. The next month, Feige stated that Eric O'Grady's Ant-Man would not be featured in the film, while Rudd became the front-runner to play Hank Pym, and casting for the character's girlfriend had begun. Around that time, the filmmakers' intentions to shoot in the United Kingdom were dashed because of a lack of studio space, which Wright believed was due to the plan by Pinewood Shepperton to add fifteen studios to their facility, which was rejected in part by the local council in May 2013 because the project was eyeing protected land. By the end of the month, the film was scheduled to be shot in the U.S. instead.

In December 2013, Wright, a fan of the comic book since childhood, owning copies of Tales to Astonish #27 featuring "The Man in the Ant-Hill" storyline and Marvel Premiere #47 featuring the first appearance of Scott Lang, stated that the difference between Ant-Man and other films featuring size-changing is "other shrinking movies are usually about somebody trapped small. This is different in that he can actually change size and he can do that at will, so it becomes more of a power than an impediment." Wright also talked about the challenge of directing a superhero film, saying, "Shaun and Hot Fuzz and World's End are all R-rated films. I like the challenge of making a PG-13 film. Because you've got to entertain in a different way. You don't have the same tools." By December 19, Rudd was in negotiations to star in the film, and Marvel announced that he had been cast as Ant-Man the next day.

In January 2014, Wright posted a screenshot on his blog from the Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes episode "To Steal an Ant-Man", which features Hank Pym and introduces the Scott Lang character, with the caption "homework". Michael Douglas was subsequently cast as Pym, with Rudd confirmed to play Lang. Michael Peña was offered an unspecified role in the film, and filming was scheduled to take place at Pinewood Atlanta in Fayette County, Georgia, while Disney changed the release date once again, moving the film up to July 17, 2015. The next month, Evangeline Lilly entered early talks to portray the female lead, and Wright announced on his blog that Bill Pope, who he worked with on Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and The World's End, would be his director of photography. By March, Wright and Cornish turned in a fifth draft of the script, amid alleged disputes on the direction the script was taking. As well, Wright and Cornish wrote a scene intended for the post-credits of Avengers: Age of Ultron that would have acted as a prelude to the film. Corey Stoll entered negotiations for an undisclosed role in the film, and by April, Patrick Wilson and Matt Gerald were cast in undisclosed roles.

On May 23, 2014, Marvel and Wright jointly announced that Wright was leaving the project due to "differences in their vision of the film", and that the studio was closing in on a new director. On the split, Wright said, "I wanted to make a Marvel movie but I don't think they really wanted to make an Edgar Wright movie." He also added that at one point, Marvel wanted to do a draft of the script without him, which was "a tough thing to move forward" as Wright has written all of the previous films he directed. Wright continued, "Suddenly becoming a director-for-hire on it, you're sort of less emotionally invested and you start to wonder why you're there, really." The majority of Wright's crew also left the project in the wake of his departure. By May 30, Adam McKay had entered negotiations to replace Wright, but he pulled out of negotiations the next day out of respect for Wright, who he was friends with. On June 7, Marvel announced that Peyton Reed would direct the film, with McKay contributing to the film's script; McKay felt this was the perfect result since he would not be replacing Wright, but was able to help Rudd, who he was also friends with. Other directors that had been under consideration include Ruben Fleischer, Rawson Marshall Thurber, Nicholas Stoller, Michael Dowse, and David Wain.

Later in June, Feige stated the film was still intended to be released on the July 17, 2015 date, with production slated to begin on August 18, 2014. Feige elaborated that "much of the movie will still be based very much on Wright and Cornish's draft and the DNA of what Edgar has created up to this point", with Reed stepping in to direct and McKay reworking only parts of the script. "Reed] wanted to be sure that he wasn't just inheriting something or following someone else's lead. Or wasn't inheriting something that the evil studio had watered down to be something bad," Feige continued. "He looked at everything, he talked with us, and he said 'Number one, I agree with the direction you're going in. And number two, I can add to it.'"

McKay confirmed that Rudd helped him rewrite the script, calling Rudd "great with dialogue", adding "the two of us holed up in hotel rooms on the east and west coast, and I think it was like six to eight weeks we just ground it out and did a giant rewrite of the script. I was really proud of what we did, I really thought we put some amazing stuff in there and built on an already strong script from Edgar Wright and sort of just enhanced some stuff." Rudd elaborated, "The idea, the trajectory, the goal, and the blueprint of it all, is really Edgar and Joe. It's their story. We changed some scenes, we added new sequences, we changed some characters, we added new characters. If you took the two scripts and held them up together they'd be very different—but the idea is all theirs." Some additions to the film that had not been featured in Wright's version included Janet van Dyne, the quantum realm, and a fight with an Avenger. According to Reed, the quantum realm was the MCU's version of the microverse, which could not be called that due to legal reasons. The alternate name was suggested by consultant Spiros Michalakis, a quantum physicist and staff researcher at the California Institute of Technology, to "inject elements of modern physics into the script". Reed also offered contributions to the revised script, as did Lilly and Stoll, who contributed ideas to help flesh out their respective characters. Lilly's character received a fuller arc and more action sequences as a result. One of the important things when joining the film for Reed was emphasizing both Hope and Janet van Dyne more, given the Wasp being "a crucial part" of the Ant-Man comics. For their efforts, McKay and Rudd were credited as additional writers of the screenplay, with Wright and Cornish credited for the screenplay and story. Wright also held an executive producer credit on the film.

By the end of July, Wilson left the film because of scheduling conflicts brought on by the filming delay, and characters being played by Gerald and Kevin Weisman were cut in McKay's revised script. Also, Reed indicated that in addition to Georgia, filming would take place in San Francisco. The next month, Reed revealed that Scott Lang's daughter would appear in the film, and Gabriel Ferrari and Andrew Barrer were hired to make further revisions to the script. Ferrari and Barrer were hired after Reed read their spec script Die in a Gunfight which Reed felt was "really interesting". Eric Pearson, a member of Marvel Studios' writing program who had written the Marvel One-Shot films, did uncredited work on the film as well, scripting the strip club scene and Stan Lee's cameo. After reading the revised script, Evangeline Lilly felt that the film was "pulled" more into the MCU than Wright's version which "was much more in the Edgar Wright camp of films." She added that, while Wright's version was "incredible" and would have been great to film and watch, "it wouldn't have fit in the Marvel Universe. It would have stuck out like a sore thumb, no matter how good it was. It just would have taken you away from this cohesive universe they're trying to create. And therefore it ruins the suspended disbelief that they've built."

Arnim Zola from Captain America: The First Avenger and Captain America: The Winter Soldier was considered to make an appearance in the film, with concept art created depicting him in his robot body from the comics.

Filming
Principal photography began on August 18, 2014 in San Francisco, under the working title Bigfoot. Scenes were shot in the Tenderloin neighbourhood and Buena Vista Park. By the end of September 2014, production on Ant-Man moved to Pinewood Atlanta Studios in Fayette County, Georgia, and David Callaham completed a rewrite of the film. Filming also took place at the State Archives building in Downtown Atlanta, to double as Pym Technologies, which is located on Treasure Island, San Francisco in the film. In October 2014, Martin Donovan was added to the cast, and Feige revealed that Ant-Man would no longer start Phase Three of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and would instead be the final film of Phase Two. When told by /Film's Germain Lussier that this placement between Avengers: Age of Ultron and Captain America: Civil War made the film feel like an afterthought, Feige replied, "It's not an after thought. The truth is the phases mean a lot to me and some people but...Civil War is the start of Phase Three. It just is. And Ant-Man is a different kind of culmination of Phase Two because it very much is in the MCU. You meet new characters and you learn about Hank Pym and his lineage with the MCU over the years. But at the same time, it also picks up the thread of Age of Ultron in terms of heroes, major heroes, Avengers, coming from unexpected places... And in that way it connects a lot. Also, Hank Pym's attitude towards Avengers, towards S.H.I.E.L.D., and kind of the cinematic universe in general, is much more informed after the events of Age of Ultron, and in a certain way, before the events of Civil War.

Feige later expanded on this by saying, "We put Ant-Man at the end of Phase Two as opposed to the beginning of Phase Three, because it sets up a lot of the things you're going to see heading into Phase Three, one of which is this mind-bending, reality-altering landscape in Doctor Strange." On December 5, 2014, Reed announced on social media that principal photography on Ant-Man had been completed.

For the film, cinematographer Russell Carpenter used a 1.85 aspect ratio shot with Arri Alexa XT and M cameras, using the M for fight sequences and helicopter filming. Camera operator Peter Rosenfeld said, "Russell and Peyton's decision to shoot in 1.85 was a good call, since at 2.35 there's insufficient height in frame to appreciate the vertical aspects of Ant-Man going from standing full-size to falling through a crack in the floor." Carpenter and Technicolour also devised a lookup table (LUT) to darken the colour palette. Carpenter said, "For a lot of recent comedies I've kept my LUTs kind of 'Kodak', saturated and upbeat. But this show needed something different that affected skin tones and the Ant-Man suit, which dates back to the 1980s, so it looks a little run-down. What I loved about this LUT was how it allowed the costume to retain the colour but took it from fire-engine red to something a little more weathered."

The filmmakers made extensive use of macro photography. Production designer Shepherd Frankel said, "It's more visually interesting to depict things from Ant-Man's point of view instead of seeing him from a normal perspective. But we wanted a realistic realization, not Honey, I Shrunk the Kids with its oversized set pieces." Rebecca Baehler served as the director of macro photography, taking cues from Carpenter. Carpenter said vibration became "a tremendous problem" when moving the camera during the macro photography because "one inch off the ground is like fifteen feet in the air. From an ant's perspective, you move four inches, to a human perspective, that's a football field!" The filmmakers needed a creative solution, so they turned to Baehler, who had a background in commercial "tabletop" photography. In order to add Rudd's performance as Ant-Man when in the macro world, a Centroid facial capture set up was used, with a five-camera array of Alexas surrounding Rudd. Rosenfeld explained, "One camera was set up vertically while the others were horizontal with overlapping image areas, all set to record at 48 frames per second. This maximised resolution and provided 3D modelling of Paul's performance." Reed would then call out story moments with Rudd performing "facial expressions that would later be composited on a CG Ant-Man." Entomologist Steven Kutcher provided suggestions to the filmmakers on how to film live ants.

Post-Production
Following the completion of principal photography, Marvel released an updated synopsis revealing that Jordi Mollà was included in the cast and the names of several supporting characters. However, Mollà subsequently did not appear in the theatrical release of the film. Reed explained that the film's original opening, which was filmed and cut in the editing process, featured a standalone sequence similar to the opening of a James Bond film, where an unseen Pym was attempting to retrieve some microfilm from Mollà's character, Castillo, a Panama army general. Reed stated the scene was going to show Ant-Man's powers, without seeing him, almost "like an Invisible Man sequence, and it's really, really cool. It started to feel tonally disconnected from the movie we were making and story-wise, and it also kind of like, it set a standalone adventure, but it didn't just connect to the rest of our story...It felt like vestige of those earlier drafts [by Wright and Cornish], which as a standalone thing was really cool." Dan Lebental and Colby Parker, Jr. served as film editors. In March 2015, Hayley Atwell confirmed that she would reprise her role as Peggy Carter in the film. In April 2015, Reed stated that the film was not completed yet and would be undergoing "a little bit of additional" filming.

In June 2015, Feige confirmed that the character of Janet van Dyne would be seen, though the film would not address Pym and Van Dyne's infamous domestic abuse storyline in the comics, saying, "We hint at a temper in a way that people who know the stories might go, 'Oh, perhaps that's a bit of [Hank's] character,' but not in a way that would ever indicate he beat his wife." Also in the month, Reed confirmed there would be a post-credit sequence "that may tie into the other films." Feige revealed the post-credit sequence was footage shot by Anthony and Joe Russo for Captain America: Civil War, saying the clip would be seen in that film, though it may be "different takes...different angles." On June 25, 2015, Reed announced on social media that production of Ant-Man was officially complete. In early July 2015, an international teaser trailer revealed that Anthony Mackie would appear in the film as Sam Wilson / Falcon. Mackie appears in the post-credit sequence as well, along with Chris Evans and Sebastian Stan as Steve Rogers / Captain America and Bucky Barnes / Winter Soldier, respectively. Stan stated the scene that was used for the post-credit sequence was shot in May 2015 and would appear in the middle of Civil War. Reed also said that the end of the film originally had a sequence where Ant-Man went after Carson to retrieve the stolen vial of Cross' particles, "... But then for a couple reasons, it felt like maybe we should leave those particles out there." For the title sequences, Marvel again went with design firm Sarofsky, who had done the credits for both Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Guardians of the Galaxy, with the credits "intricately connected to the film's overall narrative."

Visual Effects
Visual effects for the film were provided by Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), Lola VFX, Double Negative, Luma Pictures, and Method Studios, with previsualization by The Third Floor. Double Negative handled the scenes featuring shrunken characters, incorporating the macro photography and motion capture performances shot in principal photography with digital models of the characters. Double Negative also worked on Ant-Man's shrinking effect, in coordination with ILM to be used by all vendors, which showed the outline of his body, an element from the comics. Visual effects supervisor Alex Wuttke said, "It's like a little time echo. As Ant-Man shrinks in almost a stop motion way he would leave behind outlines of the poses he'd been in as he shrinks down... We'd have two CG cameras rendering the action from different points along the timeline with slightly different framings. One would be the main shot camera, the other would be a utility camera that would provide renders of static poses of Ant-Man at different points along the timeline." For the flashbacks in 1989, Douglas and Donovan appeared de-aged via CGI, alongside Atwell as Carter (aged in makeup and with CGI) and John Slattery as Howard Stark. To de-age Douglas, Lola VFX used a similar process and technology that was used to make Steve Rogers skinny in Captain America: The First Avenger and Carter older in Captain America: The Winter Soldier as well as footage of Douglas' other films from the late 1980s as reference. Dax Griffin served as Douglas' body double and an additional reference for Lola, because of his "striking resemblance of Michael when he was about 40". For Donovan, he only needed to be de-aged about a decade, so no double was used. The work on him focused on his eyes, neck, and chin. Atwell wore a wig on set, along with a fine layer of latex makeup to give the skin a more leathery look, with Lola transposing the facial features of an elderly actress onto her face.

Method and Luma both worked on creating the various ants seen in the film, with Method creating the several species of ants, to share among the vendors. Luma also handled many of the scenes at Pym Technologies when Ant-Man attempts to acquire the Yellowjacket. ILM worked on the Falcon fight sequence, having done Falcon visual effects in The Winter Soldier. Using practical suit pieces built by Legacy Effects, ILM mixed live-action shots with digital take-overs and fully digital shots to create the sequence. ILM also handled the sequences in the quantum realm, providing an array of microscopic and largely psychedelic imagery for the subatomic shrinking, taking advantage of procedural fractal rendering techniques the studio had utilised on Lucy.

Music
See Also: Ant-Man Soundtrack and Music of Marvel Cinematic Universe

In February 2014, Wright announced that Steven Price would score the film. However, Price left soon after Wright's departure from the project in May 2014. In January 2015, Christophe Beck, who worked with Reed on Bring It On, was hired to replace Price. Describing the film's score, Beck said, "For Ant-Man, I wanted to write a score in the grand symphonic tradition of my favourite superhero movies, with a sweeping scope and a big, catchy main theme. What makes this score stand out among other Marvel movies, though, is a sneaky sense of fun since it is, after all, not only a superhero movie, but also a heist comedy." Hollywood Records released the soundtrack digitally on July 17, 2015 and had a physical release on August 7.

Marketing
In March 2014, ABC aired a one-hour television special, Marvel Studios: Assembling a Universe, which included a sneak peek of Ant-Man. In July 2014, Reed, Rudd, Douglas, Lilly, and Stoll appeared at Marvel Studios' panel at the 2014 San Diego Comic-Con International to help promote the film and screen a visual effects test featuring Rudd and Douglas. In October 2014, Marvel Comics' Editor-in-Chief Axel Alonso stated there are comic tie-in plans for the film. In November 2014, ABC aired another one-hour television special titled, Marvel 75 Years: From Pulp to Pop!, which featured behind the scenes footage of Ant-Man. Marvel Comics' February 2015 solicitations released in December 2014, revealed a two-issue comic tie-in, Marvel's Ant-Man Prelude, following Hank Pym as Ant-Man on a mission during the Cold War. A second comic tie-in, Marvel's Ant-Man, Scott Lang: Small Time, was released digitally on March 3, 2015. It explains Lang's circumstances at the beginning of the film.

In January 2015, Disney officially began the film's marketing campaign by releasing a miniature "ant-sized" teaser trailer, a full-sized version of the same teaser trailer, a poster, a cover on Entertainment Weekly, and a full-length trailer during the premiere of the television series Agent Carter. Scott Mendelson of Forbes, said, "It was darn-clever for Disney to put out a miniature 'can't see anything without a microscope' version of the now-standard trailer for the trailer. I sighed just a little when they 'gave in' and released a human-sized version, realizing that Disney had just released what amounted to a teaser to a teaser to a trailer... But nonetheless, credit where credit is due, Disney was able to turn a single theatrical trailer into three separate news drops in about five days." Mendelson went on to say that "the peppy, witty trailer above is a general audience sell. Marvel knows the geeks will come if only to throw stones, but it's the mainstream audience that needs to be sold. So far, so good." However, Graeme McMillan of The Hollywood Reporter criticised the trailer for its placement during the broadcast premiere of Agent Carter, its tone, its soundtrack, and for being thematically similar to other trailers from Marvel Studios. McMillan concluded, "The Ant-Man trailer isn't bad, per se; it is, however, impressively underwhelming, which almost seems worse. Thanks to the last-minute exit of original writer-director Edgar Wright and the subsequent struggle to find a replacement, Ant-Man has become the movie that people are expecting to be Marvel's first failure, in critical if not financial terms, at least; this trailer, which fails to convince and gets by on goodwill for those involved and the Marvel brand as much as anything else, doesn't do enough. or anything, really, to persuade audiences that that's not the case." The trailer generated 29 million views worldwide in three days, the third-largest viewership for a Marvel Studios film, behind trailers for Iron Man 3 and Avengers: Age of Ultron.

In April 2015, Marvel debuted a second trailer for Ant-Man. Mendelson said it was "frankly the Ant-Man trailer that we've been waiting for. It's not just funny and exciting, it's an 'Ah ha!' moment when we realize just what exactly an Ant-Man movie has to offer." Also in April, miniature billboards promoting Ant-Man with battery-powered LED lights began appearing in Melbourne, Brisbane and other areas around Queensland, Australia as part of a street marketing campaign for the film. The next month, Marvel, in partnership with Dolby Laboratories, Visa, and Raspberry Pi, announced the "Ant-Man Micro-Tech Challenge", aimed at females aged 14 through 18, to create DIY projects involving micro technology and readily accessible and found materials. Winners teamed with STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics education) programs in their areas to lead teams in recreating their projects. In June, Marvel released posters featuring Ant-Man juxtaposed with Iron Man's armour, Captain America's shield, and Thor's hammer Mjolnir. Mendelson compared this to Disney's marketing campaign for Lilo & Stitch that put the protagonist into iconic scenes from other Disney cartoons. A six-minute IMAX preview of the film began screening before showings of Jurassic World, and scenes from the film were shown at Disney California Adventure's Bug's Life Theater in 3D with in-theatre effects.

In early July 2015, Marvel began a viral marketing campaign featuring Leslie Bibb, reprising her role from the Iron Man films as journalist Christine Everhart, reporting for the faux news program WHIH Newsfront. In the program, Everhart discusses the fallout from the events of Avengers: Age of Ultron, Lang's imprisonment, and events leading to Captain America: Civil War. Also in July, Michael Douglas and executives from Marvel Entertainment rang the closing bell of the New York Stock Exchange in celebration of the release of Ant-Man. Disney spent $34.8 million on television advertising for the film, more than the $26.9 million spent for Avengers: Age of Ultron, since the former was a new property.

In December 2015, to commemorate the home media release of Ant-Man, Marvel UK launched a website that offers visitors a view of various London landmarks from the perspective of an ant in a Google Street View-type experience. The company commissioned photographer Will Pearson to capture ten different locations including Tower Bridge, Oxford Circus, the British Museum, St Paul's Cathedral and Nelson's Column using a 360° miniature camera that sat centimetres off of the ground.

Theatrical
Ant-Man premiered at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood on June 29, 2015 and opened the 2015 Fantasia International Film Festival on July 14, 2015, along with Miss Hokusai. The film was released in France on July 14, and was released in North America on July 17, in 3D and IMAX 3D. The film was released in the United States in 3,800 theatres, with the breakdown of 3,100 3D screens, 361 IMAX screens, 388 large format screens and 133 D-Box screens. Ant-Man had originally been scheduled for release on November 6, 2015. In September 2013, the release was moved to July 31, 2015, before changing for a final time to July 17, 2015 in January 2014. An unfinished version of the film was screened on June 24, 2015, at CineEurope.

Home Media
Ant-Man was released for digital download by Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment on November 17, 2015 and released on Blu-ray, Blu-ray 3D, and DVD on December 8, 2015. The digital and Blu-ray releases include behind-the-scenes featurettes, audio commentary, deleted scenes, and a blooper reel. Upon its first week of release on home media in the U.S., the film debuted at number two on the Nielsen VideoScan First Alert chart, which tracks overall disc sales, as well as the dedicated Blu-ray Disc sales chart, with 63% of unit sales coming from Blu-ray.

The film was also collected in the 13-disc box set, titled "Marvel Cinematic Universe: Phase Two Collection", which includes all of the Phase Two films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It was released on December 8, 2015.

Box Office
Ant-Man grossed $180.2 million in North America and $339.1 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $519.3 million. Deadline Hollywood calculated the net profit of the film to be $103.9 million, when factoring together "production budgets, P&A, talent participations and other costs, with box office grosses, and ancillary revenues from VOD to DVD and TV," placing it 14th on their list of 2015's "Most Valuable Blockbusters".

Ant-Man made $6.4 million from its Thursday night showings in North America, with 48% of tickets sales for IMAX and other large-format showings, and $23.4 million on its opening day, including Thursday's previews, making it the second-lowest opening day for a Marvel film, only ahead of 2008's The Incredible Hulk ($21.4 million). It fell 18% to earn $19.25 million on Saturday, and for its opening weekend total, earned $57.2 million. It marked the second-lowest debut for Marvel ahead of the $55.4 million debut of The Incredible Hulk in 2008. IMAX contributed $6.1 million to the opening gross, with premium large format screens comprising $6.4 million and Cinemark XD comprising $1.3 million, respectively. Ant-Man continued Marvel's streak of number one opening films, giving the studio its twelfth consecutive win. Disney reported that the film drew the largest share of families (28%) and women (32%) of any Marvel superhero title. It was also the biggest live-action opening ever for Rudd (breaking Knocked Up's record of $30.7 million) and a record opening for Douglas. It continued to be the top film at the box office in its second weekend.

Outside North America, it earned $55.4 million in its opening weekend from 37 countries, debuting in third place at the international box office behind the Chinese film Monster Hunt and Minions as well as an IMAX opening of $9.1 million. The top openings were the UK ($6 million), Mexico ($5.6 million), and Russia ($4.9 million). It had the biggest opening for a first-instalment Marvel film in Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand. The film's opening in South Korea in early September 2015 earned $9.3 million, the highest opening for an international market at the time, before being surpassed by the Chinese opening in mid-October 2015, which earned $42.4 million, with $5.1 million coming from IMAX. The large opening weekend in China helped Ant-Man place first at the international box office for the first time, with the Chinese opening the second largest for an MCU film in the country behind Avengers: Age of Ultron. The film stayed at number one in China for a second week, earning an additional $22 million. As of November 1, 2015, the largest markets are China with $101.3 million, followed by the UK with $25.4 million, and South Korea with $18.9 million.

Critical Response
The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported an 83% approval rating with an average score of 6.9/10, based on 321 reviews. The website's consensus reads, "Led by a charming performance from Paul Rudd, Ant-Man offers Marvel thrills on an appropriately smaller scale – albeit not as smoothly as its most successful predecessors." On Metacritic, the film has an average score of 64 out of 100, based on 43 critics, indicating "generally favourable reviews". CinemaScore reported that audiences gave the film an "A" grade on an A+ to F scale, while those at PostTrak gave it 4 out of 5 stars.

Justin Chang of Variety said the film "succeeds well enough as a genial diversion and sometimes a delightful one, predicated on the rarely heeded Hollywood wisdom that less really can be more." Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter remarked, "Although the story dynamics are fundamentally silly and the family stuff, with its parallel father-daughter melodrama, is elemental button-pushing, a good cast led by a winning Paul Rudd puts the nonsense over in reasonably disarming fashion." Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times wrote, "Playful in unexpected ways and graced with a genuinely off-centre sense of humour, Ant-Man (engagingly directed by Peyton Reed) is light on its feet the way the standard-issue Marvel behemoths never are." Kim Newman of Empire wrote that it "straddles as many genres as the Avengers films have characters but manages to do most of them pretty well. Extremely likable, with a few moments of proper wonder." A. O. Scott of The New York Times said, "This film is a passable piece of drone work from the ever-expanding Marvel-Disney colony."

For some critics, Ant-Man is seen as one of the more exceptional films in the Marvel franchise. Richard Brody of The New Yorker cited the film as "the non-bombastic superhero movie" that strays from the grandiose tone of other films in its genre, stating that the film is "a bracing, giddy delight.... a neoclassical comedy more closely related to Alfred Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief and to hectically skimpy B-movies than to the other members of the Marvel family." Matt Zoller Seitz of RogerEbert.com praised how the film "feels handmade, not Marvel factory-approved. It reminded me of Zemeckis when Zemeckis was fun." In May 2016, ten months after Ant-Man was released, Seitz admitted that his "affection for it has increased with time" and compared its sweet and melodramatic sensibility to Spider-Man 2.

Conversely, Alonso Duralde of TheWrap said the film "serves up jokes that don't land and thrills that don't thrill." Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times said Ant-Man "is a lightweight, cliché-riddled origins story that veers between inside-joke comedy, ponderous redemption story lines and admittedly nifty CGI sequences that still seem relatively insignificant compared to the high stakes and city-shattering destruction that take place in most of the Avengers movies." Catherine Shoard of The Guardian wrote, "Ant-Man is a cut-and-shut muddle, haunted by Edgar Wright's ghost, produced by a high-end hot dog factory, by turns giddying and stupefying." Joe Morgenstern of The Wall Street Journal said that it is "a film that will surely be popular, given Marvel's marketing might, but one that's woefully short on coherence and originality." Christopher Orr of The Atlantic said, "It's difficult to shake the sense that the film was assembled hurriedly and somewhat haphazardly. Which, from all available evidence, is exactly what happened."

Ant-Man and the Wasp
See Also: Ant-Man and the Wasp

A sequel, Ant-Man and the Wasp was released on July 6, 2018, with Reed once again returning as director. Production writers Barrer and Ferrari also return to write the screenplay with Rudd, Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers. Rudd, Lilly, Cannavale, Peña, Harris, Greer, Dastmalchian, Fortson and Douglas all reprise their roles from Ant-Man, and are joined by Michelle Pfeiffer, Laurence Fishburne, Hannah John-Kamen, Randall Park and Walton Goggins as Janet van Dyne, Bill Foster, Ghost, Jimmy Woo, and Sonny Burch, respectively.

Untitled Third Film
A third Ant-Man film is in development, with Reed returning to direct.