Edgar Wright‘s “Ant-Man” seems to be done most of its major casting, but one more name has been announced. Relative unknown and “Terminator 3” actor Matt Gerald has joined the cast as the movie’s villain; or one of them anyhow. The identity of that villain is currently unknown and like most Marvel movies, we assume they’ll be more than one antagonist
“Ant-Man” already stars Paul Rudd as the titular hero aka Scott Lang, Michael Douglas will play Hank Pym, the original Ant-Man, or at least the man who created the shrinking serum and the rest of the cast includes Evangeline Lily, “House Of Cards” actor Corey Stoll, Patrick Wilson of “Watchmen” and Michael Peña. “Ant-Man” opens in the summer of 2015.
Meanwhile, Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige is everywhere of course, doing the rounds for “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” (which is expected to gross more than $100 million this weekend. Feige’s already said the Marvel movie roadmap extends to 2028, but has been pretty non-committal to confirming movies for new characters.
*Spoilers from here on in, so please turn away if you haven’t seen the movie.*
Let’s start less spoilery. Asked about ‘The Winter Soldier’ and how it relates to the next films, Feige said the ‘Captain America’ sequel ties more directly to “Avengers: Age Of Ultron” than “Iron Man 3” or “Thor: The Dark World.” Speaking to Crave Feige said some of it applies to Hawkeye, aka Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner), the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent conspicuously absent in the S.H.I.E.L.D.-centric ‘Winter Soldier.’
“We will discover, later, the answers to that question [why Hawkeye is AWOL from ‘Cap 2’]. But it really came down to how many players can you have on the field at this time?,” Feige said of reducing characters in the sequel.
“ We really wanted to bring in Falcon [Anthony Mackie], we really wanted to team [Captain America] up with Black Widow, we really wanted Fury to have more of a part than he’s ever had in any of the other movies before. We wanted, ever so briefly, to introduce Sharon Carter. And we had a fun place for Maria Hill to be involved. So we didn’t want to just have, “Hey, I’m Hawkeye! Hey, I’m Iron Man!” We want to avoid the brief cameos of the week….”
“Not every character from every movie is going to be in Age of Ultron, for sure,” Feige added. “But Joss [Whedon] is excited and, for the characters you haven’t seen since the first Avengers – like Hawkeye, like Hulk – there’s a reason for that, and that gets [them] showcased quite prominently in Age of Ultron.”
OK and now for the semi-big spoiler. If you’ve seen the movie and you’re paying attention, you know that Stephen Strange, aka Dr. Strange’s name is dropped. Is that sowing the seeds for the rumored “Dr. Strange” movie (or which directors and actors have been met with already)? Again, Feige was non-committal and instead sort of shrugged it off as low-key introducing ground work (this quote will make a lot more sense after you’ve seen ‘Cap 2.’)
“Well, we know what it means and where we want to head with it, but we were comfortable with keeping it in there and leaving it in there because there are a few different ways to interpret it. The whole thing, what Sitwell’s saying is, this algorithm is going to predict if you’re going to become a problem for Hydra or not. So you don’t have to just be Tony Stark, actively plotting to save the world. You could be a kid whose SAT scores and whose essays have indicated that you’re going to be a problem one day. So is Stephen Strange the Sorcerer Supreme? Probably not at that point. Is he an unbelievably talented neurosurgeon who’s opinionated and kind of arrogant? Probably. That might put him on the list.”
Will Strange be one of the movies announced for 2016 or 2017? That’s unclear, but Feige adds, “I think we’re very close to knowing and probably a few months from announcing. [our] 2016/2017 [movies]. Those are already rumored to be “Thor 3,” “Avengers 3” and good ol’ “Dr. Strange.”
For more Marvel, here’s our recent feature, we ranked every Marvel film (Marvel Studios or otherwise) from Best To Worst. [Deadline/Crave]