| abstract
| - Trivia about Ant-Man.
* The film has been in development since the late 1980s. "Ant-Man" creator Stan Lee had made a pitch to New Line Entertainment but they found the premise too similar to Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989). The project thus languished for two decades.
* Originally the film was meant to focus on the original Ant-Man, Hank Pym. However, the filmmakers deemed Pym as having a too family-unfriendly history (Pym developed several split personalities, one of whom abused his girlfriend Janet) and instead decided to focus on Pym's successor Scott Lang, with Pym becoming a mentor and supporting character.
* Scott Lang suggests calling the Avengers to assist. In the comics Ant-Man was an original Avenger.
* Joseph Gordon-Levitt was considered for the role of Scott Lang/Ant-Man.
* Jessica Chastain turned down the role of Hope van Dyne due to scheduling conflicts.
* Originally, director Edgar Wright, a big fan of Ant-Man, proposed the film to Marvel in 2003, describing it as "an action-adventure comedy; a cross-genre action and special effects bonanza." He had been developing the movie since then, shooting a test reel, hiring the cast, and was close to begin shooting the movie. Then, in 2014, he dropped out due to 'creative differences' between him and Disney, which had bought out Marvel Studios two years prior.
* Originally, the film was meant to focus on the original Ant-Man, Hank Pym. However, the filmmakers deemed Pym as having a too family-unfriendly history (Pym developed several split personalities, one of whom abused his girlfriend Janet) and instead decided to focus on Pym's successor Scott Lang, with Pym becoming a mentor and supporting character.
* Ant-Man's helmet is influenced by the helmets of Iron Man and the Autobot Transformer Bumblebee.
* (May 2014) Original director Edgar Wright left the project due to creative differences with Marvel Studios. He was attached to the project's pre-production for about eight years. Peyton Reed was announced as his replacement in early June the same year.
* The film has been in development since the late 1980s. "Ant-Man" creator Stan Lee had made a pitch to New Line Entertainment but they found the premise too similar to Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989). The project thus languished in development hell for two decades.
* When the role of Wasp (Hank Pym's lover and wife) was in the script, Rashida Jones was considered for the part.
* Michael Douglas compared Hank Pym to his role as Liberace in Behind the Candelabra (2013): "Sometimes you've got to shake them up a little bit and have some fun."
* Ant-Man is the first production to film in the sound stages at the new Pinewood Atlanta Studios.
* In the comics and Avengers: Earth Mightiest Heroes, Hank Pym created Ultron, but in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Tony Stark is the one who creates Ultron.
* The director of this film, Peyton Reed, was considered to direct Guardians of the Galaxy, another Marvel Studios film, which was later directed by James Gunn. Reed was also attached at one point to direct Fantastic Four.
* Sean Bean, Pierce Brosnan, and Gary Oldman were considered by Edgar Wright for the role of an older Dr. Hank Pym.
* Adam McKay, Ruben Fleische, Rawson Marshall Thurber, Nicholas Stolle, Michael Dowse and David Wain were considered to direct the film, with McKay opting to rewrite the script instead.
* Hank Pym's Yellowjacket identity from the comics (and Avengers:EMH) will be use for Darren Cross as a supervillain name in the film.
* Patrick Wilson was cast but after the movie was delayed, scheduling conflicts forced Wilson to drop out.
* When Edgar Wright was first considering actors for an older Hank Pym. Sean Bean, Pierce Brosnan and Gary Oldman were all considered before Michael Douglas was cast.
* According to Michael Douglas, the costume that Paul Rudd wears had to be altered because of his muscles. Rudd had gone on an extensive training and workout regimen in order to build the proper muscle size for a superhero. But since Rudd had become so muscular, Douglas said "He was so cut, that they had to soften his costume up, with all the built-in six-packs and all of that."
* Behind The Scenes video was shown on the Marvel special "Marvel 75 Years: From Pulp to Pop!".
* Scott lives at the Milgrom Hotel. This was named after comic-book artist Al Milgrom.
* According to the filmmakers, the main theme in this film is "passing the torch."
* According to Michael Douglas, the costume for Paul Rudd had to be altered because of his muscles. Rudd had gone on an extensive training and workout regimen in order to build the proper muscle size for a superhero, but Rudd had become so muscular, they had to soften his costume up.
* While Edgar Wright was working on the film, he requested that Marvel would refrain from using Ant-Man or Wasp until he had finished the movie, which is why they were absent from The Avengers (2012).
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* Corey Stoll describes his character of Darren Cross as a shadowy version of Hank Pym: "Cross is a guy who is not that dissimilar from Michael Douglas' character Hank Pym. A brilliant scientist, who is not ethically pure. The great thing about the whole movie is that everybody is in those shades of gray."
* Filmed in the 1.85:1 aspect ratio, rather than the usual 2.35:1 for most Marvel films, to resemble the short stature of the title character.
* Paul Rudd stated in an interview with New York Times columnist Tom Riddle that he purchased a massive ant farm and watched how the ants worked together. He was so inspired by them that he decided to keep the farm after the filming was complete.
* In an interview at Comic-Con, Peyton Reed said that Marvel originally wanted Steve Buscemi for the role of Hank Pym, but due to a scheduling conflict, they had to go with Michael Douglas, their second choice. Buscemi would later be rumoured to be in the running for the role of Uncle Ben.
* Garrett Morris who portrays a cab driver in the film appeared as Ant Man in a Saturday Night Live (1975) sketch when Margot Kidder guest hosted. The sketch was a superhero cocktail party. When Ant-Man arrives, he's given a hard time by the other, more popular superheroes.
* Simon Pegg described Edgar Wright's script as 'daring, fun funny and hugely exciting'. He lamented that this script will not be made.
* Ant-Man is the first production to film in the sound stages at the new Pinewood Atlanta Studios.
* Michael Douglas said one of his reasons for taking on the role of Hank Pym was so that his kids could see him in a movie.
* Although Edgar Wright dropped out of the movie, a large portion of the script he wrote is still in the story.
* In the comics, Cassie Lang becomes the size-changing super hero Stature.
* Paul Rudd and stuntmen wore actual Ant-Man suits while Corey Stoll wore a motion-capture suit as Yellowjacket. This decision was made early on when creating and filming with a real Yellowjacket costume was found to be impractical.
* John Slattery reprises his role as Howard Stark, Tony Stark's father. He last played the role in Iron Man 2 (2010) and can be seen when Tony is watching the home videos of his father.
* The idea of a potential Ant-Man movie had been kicked around before Marvel had its own movie studio. Once the Marvel Cinematic Universe was founded, there were plans to include him in the Phase One films and be a member of the Avengers. Those plans fell through and he was supposed to have a film in Phase Two instead. The movie was then pushed back to becoming the first part of Phase Three, until it was decided that this movie would actually be the finale of Phase Two, after Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), and that Captain America: Civil War (2016) would lead Phase Three. In short, its release date didn't change so much as its classification.
* In addition to getting in shape with the help of a trainer and weights, Paul Rudd worked with a gymnast. Rudd said of using a gymnast, "I knew I was going to have to do rolls and flips and things like that. I just wanted to be as convincing as possible."
* Adrien Brody had been interested in playing Scott Lang.
* Paul Rudd studied up on ants as part of his preparation for the role.
* The preview for the first teaser was ant-sized... Which is to say that it's almost completely impossible to tell what's going on in it. A human-sized trailer went up the next day.
* The Yellowjacket armor is based on the G.I. Ant-Man armor from the "Irredeemable Ant-Man" comic (which was worn by Eric O'Grady, a ).
* In the comics Scott's daughter Cassie eventually dons the Ant-Man costume herself to become the heroine Ant-Girl. She currently uses the name Stature as she can grow to giant size.
* Mary Elizabeth Winstead wanted to play The Wasp.
* Bobby Cannavale (Paxton) and John Slattery (Howard Stark) appeared in the hit TV series Will & Grace: Cannalvale was Will's love interest and Slattery was Will's brother.
* The toy train that a miniaturized Ant-Man and Yellowjacket fight on is a Bachmann Thomas the Tank Engine with four coaches; Annie, Emily's Composite Coach, Clarabel, and Emily's Brake Coach, respectively.
* Scott Lang has red hair in the comics and Avengers EMH. Paul Rudd has dark brown hair. Edgar Wright himself pointed to Rudd's natural charisma, which would make Scott likeable despite being a criminal in-story; essentially, he was the natural choice for the role.
* Like The Mask of Zorro, this film involves the aging original hero (Michael Douglas/Anthony Hopkins) acting as a mentor to a younger one (Antonio Banderas/Evangeline Lilly) who eventually takes over the superhero role, and also becomes romantically involved with his daughter. The daughter in The Mask of Zorro was played by Catherine Zeta-Jones, who is Michael Douglas's wife.
* David Dastmalchian has been in a DC Comics film as well: The Dark Knight.
* Garrett Morris, the man in the car Scott lands on after first putting on the suit, costars with Thor and Thor: The Dark World supporting actress Kat Dennings on 2 Broke Girls.
* The movie is set in San Francisco. Michael Douglas starred in The Streets of San Francisco.
* Michael Keaton, who played Batman, had to change his name from Michael Douglas. Here Michael Douglas plays a superhero of his own.
* Hank wants Scott to use the Ant-Man technology to pull off a heist. In the comics and Avengers:Earth Mightiest Heroes, Scott Lang stole the Ant-Man suit in hopes of pulling off enough heists to save his sick daughter.
* Contains 2 scenes. 1 Mid Credit and 1 Post Credit. The first shows Dr. Pym giving Hope the Wasp suit, and explains that it is a prototype that he and her mother, the original Wasp, worked on. The second shows Captain America and Falcon finding The Winter Soldier tied up in a secret base. Falcon afterwards talks about calling someone implying Ant Man.
* Yellowjacket in this film is a combination of Yellowjacket (a mentally unstable superhuman), Darren Cross (a villainous businessman and enemy of Scott Lang), Eric O'Grady (an amoral and selfish person with Pym tech) and Ultron (a deranged apprentice of Pym). In the comics, Yellowjacket was one of Hank Pym's alternate personalities.
* References Spider-Man once near the end of the film. A woman says she knows a man who jumps high, a man who shrinks, and "a guy who can crawl up walls".
* According to Peyton Reed, Scott shrinking into the Microverse to save Cassie is a homage to sci-fi writer Richard Matheson's stories "Little Girl Lost" (from Twilight Zone) and The Incredible Shrinking Man, and the inter-dimensional travel films 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Black Hole.
* Hank Pym mentions that not wearing a proper helmet might unbalance the brain's chemicals. He is also shown to be taking some sort of pills when going through a metal detector. This may be a reference to his multiple personality disorder, which at least is known to exist in the comic books.
* Janet van Dyne (Wasp) ends up shrinking herself into a microscopic dimension and was presumed dead. This was her fate in the Marvel comic "Secret Invasion".
* Scott uses one of his discs to increase his own size. Besides the ant-man suit, Hank Pym has also used his science to create the Giant Man persona.
* The words "tales to astonish" are uttered in the film. This is a homage to the comic series of the same name which introduced Hank Pym as Ant-Man.
* Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely wrote the sequence between Scott Lang and Sam Wilson.
* The mid-credits scene was a daily from Captain America: Civil War.
* Jordi Mollà was cast as a character simply known as "Castillo". It was later revealed by Peyton Reed that the scene he was supposed to feature in was the opening sequence: "It was basically a standalone sequence where you really did not see it was Hank Pym. He was retrieving some microfilm from this, originally Cuban general and then it because a Panamanian general… It really was designed in those early drafts to be almost like a Bond movie standalone scene in the beginning. It was going to show the powers. You never saw Ant-Man, it almost felt like an Invisible Man sequence, and it’s really, really cool." Some of the footage was used in Darren Cross' videos of the fabled Ant-Man.
* This movie continues the trend of MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) phase 2 characters losing an arm, a homage to Star Wars. Previous examples include Tony Stark cutting off Aldrich Killian's arm in Iron Man 3 (2013), Loki's illusion of Thor losing his arm in Thor: The Dark World (2013), Bucky Barnes' mechanical prosthetic arm in Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), Ultron severing Ulyses Klaue's arm in Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)), and Phil Coulson's left hand being cut off in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: S.O.S. Part 2 (2015) among others. Here, after Ant-Man sabotages the Yellowjacket's suit, the Yellowjacket begins to implode and compress, first completely losing his right arm, before the rest of his body dissipates into nothing. Kevin Feige's has stated that this trend is supposed to pay homage to the classic scene in Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980) where Darth Vader cuts of Luke Skywalker's hand. The Star Wars scene itself was also an homage to Yojimbo (1961).
* When Scott is shrinking to microscopic size he appears to shrink into a forest. This could allude to the Microverse. In Marvel comics its a whole world on subatomic level.
* Another ending was filmed that is closure-related. In it Scott Lang tracks down and confronts Mitchell, who knew that Carson took the Pym Particles sample during the confrontation at the lab. It was filmed as a measure of ambiguity in the event it was needed. The producers eventually decided to leave it out as a future plot point in either of another tie-in or in the sequel.
* The ant that is enlarged and becomes Cassie's pet is referred to as a boy. However it appears to be a worker ant, not a typically larger male drone, and is likely a female like all worker ants.
* When Cross brings the Hydra agents into the room where the Yellowjacket suit is stored, one of the Hydra agents has part of a tattoo showing above his collar. It is the symbol of the "Ten Rings" terrorist group that kidnapped Tony Stark in the first Iron Man film.
* When Ant-Man enters the microverse, you can see a figure, and the figure could be Janet van Dyne who entered the microverse back when she was the Wasp possibly hinting that she could come back.
* When Yellowjacket's regulator is destroyed, his body parts get hideously enlarged and shrunken; his head notably becomes oversized. This particular feature belongs to Egghead, an Ant-Man villain and scientist who was obsessed with humiliating Hank Pym.
* The climax, when Scott shrinks to sub-atomic levels and enters the quantum realm, is a tribute to the Disneyland attraction, Adventure Thru Inner Space. Open from 1967 through 1985, the attraction shrunk guests as they got smaller till they became the size of an atom. Hank warns Scott by saying, "It means that you would enter a reality where all concepts of time and space become irrelevant as you shrink for all eternity." This same quote is repeated when Scott is in the quantum realm, though it echoes, similar to the Paul Frees quote from the attraction, "They will be our only source of contact once you have passed beyond the limits of normal Mag-ni-fi-ca-tion".
* Hank Pym tells Hope that her mother (Janet Van Dyne) died in a plane crash, and Hope says she wishes he would stop telling that lie. Evangeline Lilly, who portrays Hope Van Dyne (aka Hope Pym) also portrayed Kate Austen in Lost - where she and the other main characters miraculously survive a plane crash.
* Near the end of the movie after Pym is shot in the shoulder; Scott is comforting him when a gun is pointed at his head by the bad guy. There is a brief but very clear shot of the rear of the slide on the gun. The gun is clearly a striker fired Glock pistol. Just seconds later the ants disable the gun by jaming their bodies into the space between the hammer of the gun and the rear of the slide. Glocks are fired using an internal striker; they do not have any external hammer. Clearly they glued a fake hammer on the rear of the slide for this scene.
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