Despite its current slate of films being forced to change release dates due to current world events, Marvel Studios is still moving ahead with new comic-book movies. “Black Widow” may not get released next month, but we just got our first news about another of the film series in the MCU: “Ant-Man.”
According to The Hollywood Reporter’s Heat Vision blog, Marvel Studios enlisted Jeff Loveness, a veteran writer and co-producer on Adult Swim’s sci-fi comedy series “Rick and Morty” to draft the screenplay of the third chapter in the “Ant-Man” saga. According to the report, the deal was closed in the early days of the current Hollywood shutdown, and Loveness has already started writing. Additionally, Payton Reed has already wrapped up a deal to return to direct the film and close out the trilogy.
Not only is “Ant-Man” the closest Marvel comes to the plot of an episode of “Rick and Morty,” but Loveness already has experience with outlandish high-concept comedy. In addition to the Adult Swim series, he has also written for the Daniel Radcliffe-led series “Miracle Workers,” and even storylines for Marvel comic-book series centered on Spider-Man, Groot, Nova, and others.
Of course, Marvel hasn’t officially announced the third “Ant-Man” film, so we don’t know exactly when the project might start filming. Other Marvel sequels expected to shoot this year like “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” “Thor: Love and Thunder” and “Shang-Chi and The Legend of the Ten Rings” already halted production due to the coronavirus pandemic, and the rest of Marvel Studios’ release dates for Phase 4 were reshuffled on Friday.
Paul Rudd is expected to return as Scott Lang, aka Ant-Man, as is Evangeline Lilly as Hope van Dyne/The Wasp. Michael Douglas has already confirmed he’ll return as Hank Pym, and so has Michael Peña who plays the fast-talking Luis, so it is to be expected that Michelle Pfeiffer will also return as Janet van Dyne.