With "Avengers: Age of Ultron" firmly across the $1 billion mark at the global box office, Marvel Studios is finally ready to close out Phase 2 with next month's "Ant-Man." Although the film will largely be used to tell the origin story of Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) and introduce fans to a new potential Avenger, "Ant-Man" will also contain the required shared universe building of its MCU predecessors.
Rudd has already been confirmed for next year's "Captain America: Civil War," but fans are more excited to see the MCU debut of Spider-Man in the same film. Ironically, Marvel fans may be treated to a few Easter Eggs regarding Spider-Man in "Ant-Man" next month.
"The Sony/Marvel Spider-Man sharing deal wasn't announced until early this year, but Ant-Man will start planting the seeds for the character to make his first appearance in Captain America: Civil War as a fully-formed hero without an origin story retread," Kellvin Chavez of Latino-Review wrote. "In the MCU, by the time Ant-Man occurs, Spider-Man exists.
"We've heard an unconfirmed rumor there is 'lots of' talk of/references to Spider-Man and OsCorp in the current version of Ant-Man."
"Ant-Man" notoriously lost its original director/writer in Edgar Wright thanks to the stringent demands of the MCU regarding its shared connections between movies. Although that was long before Sony and Marvel agreed to share the rights to the Spider-Man character, it is these kinds of links in the script that led to Wright leaving the project.
Now, Peyton Reed has taken over and presumably done enough to satisfy Marvel's desire to fit "Ant-Man" into their larger cinematic universe. To be fair, "Spider-Man" is such a huge property with such enormous box office potential that teasing his introduction and existence is just standard operating procedure for the studio at this point. Fans will eagerly await his first mentions this summer, especially with Matthew McConaughey being rumored for the role of Norman Osborn.
"Ant-Man" will hit theaters on July 17.
