After a bitter, public divorce from director Edgar Wright in May of 2014, Marvel’s Ant-Man started working out, got a new haircut, and bought a new wardrobe, and now it’s having athletic revenge sex with multiple flexible partners. In the wake of Wright’s messy exit, most people thought Ant-Man was down for the count, washed-up and directionless, but Ant-Man is here to tell you that is doing just fine, thank you, and have you met Aldo? Aldo’s a yoga instructor. Excuse Ant-Man while it puts on some pants.
This is the carcass of Wright’s project stuffed with the steely determination of Kevin Feige—he will NOT let this movie lose. To that end, the early marketing for the film is a cut above the usual Marvel push. First, there’s the poster—it’s terrific. Marvel REALLY sucks at designing posters, but Ant-Man’s poster is not only clever, all that bright white negative space makes it stick out like a sore thumb. This is an excellent poster both creatively and marketing-wise. Then last week they released an “ant-sized” teaser for the trailer, which was cute, and later this week they’re taking the cover of Entertainment Weekly, reframing The Divorce as just another “bump in the road”, and introducing Paul Rudd as their newest superhero.
As for the trailer itself, it’s giving me flashbacks to the first trailer for Guardians of the Galaxy—it’s a perfect combination of action and humor, and it’s running right at the silliest elements of the story. Ant-Man’s power is ridiculous and the trailer acknowledges the inherent stupidity of the concept. Guardians did the same thing, basking in its own weirdness, and look how that worked out. I don’t think Ant-Man will be as big as Guardians (yet, let me watch an actual movie audience react to this trailer and I’ll get back to you), but it does not look like Marvel’s first failure, either. It looks like they’re going to do it again. They’re going to take a C-list superhero no one has heard of and turn him into a star.
(Lainey: ummmm…wait a minute. He flies around on a robot ant airplane!?!?)
