Edgar Wright’s Ant-Man was officially confirmed at Comic-Con last year to be on the Marvel line-up, following months of teased possibilities that the film would be coming.
The release date was officially set for November 2015 a few months back, which set it as the follow-up to The Avengers 2, which arrives on 1st May, 2015.
The question in a lot of our minds then revolved around Ant-Man’s status amongst the Phases of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Phase One comprises of everything between Iron Man and last year’s The Avengers.
Phase Two kicks off this year with Iron Man 3, and we were wondering whether Ant-Man would be the concluding part to Phase Two, or if it would be the start of a whole new Phase.
And now MTV have been talking to Marvel’s Kevin Feige, and he’s confirmed that Ant-Man will indeed be the start of Phase Three:
“‘Ant-Man’ is definitely part of Phase Three,” Marvel’s Kevin Feige told MTV News during our recent interview. “Like ‘Iron Man 3,’ it’s certainly set in the Marvel Universe, but it’s also through the lens of Edgar Wright — which is the only reason we’re making the movie.
“I’ve known Edgar since our first lunch together at Comic-Con in 2004,” he continued. “He asked me what Marvel was doing with ‘Ant-Man’ — we weren’t even a studio then; what a difference eight years makes! It’s very much an ‘Ant-Man’ origin movie from the perspective of Edgar Wright and his co-writer Joe Cornish. It will of course be firmly planted in the MCU, but a different corner than we’ve seen before.”
Talking about the upcoming films in Phase Two, and how Phase Three will be going into “different corners,” Feige added:
“”So much of the stories we’re telling [right now] is about the core ‘Avengers’ characters we’ve now met, and they’ll be evolving in big, surprising ways, in Cap’s next movie and Thor’s next movie and of course in ‘Iron Man 3,’ as we get them all into the next ‘Avengers’ film,” said Feige. “Beyond that… ‘Ant-Man’ is the only one officially announced, but you probably don’t have to look too far to guess at the next list of characters we’re toying with and beginning to develop.””
And when asked if Doctor Strange was one of those characters, he replied:
“”‘Doctor Strange,’ which I’ve been talking about for years, is definitely one of them,” he confirmed. “He’s a great, original character, and he checks the box off this criteria that I have: he’s totally different from anything else we have, just like ‘Guardians of the Galaxy.’ He’s totally different from anything we’ve done before, as is ‘Ant-Man,’ which keeps us excited.””
So whilst Doctor Strange isn’t entirely confirmed yet, Feige seems passionate to bring him to the big screen, and Phase Three would be an awesome place to do that.
With Ant-Man kicking proceedings off in late 2015, it’s going to be very interesting to hear in the coming months and years what will officially be following, and when.
Ant-Man is set for release on 6th November, 2015, and we couldn’t be more excited. Phase Two is going to be utterly immense over the next few years, and it’s awesome to know how much more we have to look forward to beyond it. More as we get it.
