Personally, I cannot wait until Saturday’s Marvel panel at San Diego Comic Con. Hopefully, at that panel, we’ll get a definite answer to all these casting rumors once and for all.
The latest rumor making the rounds on Twitter is that Adrien Brody’s name has been attached to role of Hank Pym, a.k.a. Ant-Man in Edgar Wright’s Ant-Man film.
Does this mean Nathan Fillion is out? Was he ever in? Or is Ant-Man like Queen Elizabeth I or Steve Prefontaine that it can support two actors playing the same role so close in succession. The carefully worded tweets in question might give us a little clue.
This rumor is reported by Bleeding Cool’s Brendon Connolly, quoting tweets from two prominent film bloggers.
The first up is John Campea, formerly of The Movie Blog and now in charge of AMC’s Script to Screen.
Personally, I like the “take it for what it’s worth” caveat. That’s covering yourself. But it wasn’t necessary because it was later confirmed by El Mayimbe of Latino Review:
My thoughts on the matter?
- Adrien Brody os an Academy Award winner. But while there are Oscar winners who are recognized for consistently good work (Your Meryl Streeps, Your Jack Nicholsons, Your Denzel Washingtons, Your Morgan Freemans), there are others either through poor post-Oscar role selection or them just not being that good of an actor (your Mira Sorvinos, your Cuba Gooding Jrs, your Hallie Berrys, your Roberto Benignis, your Nicolas Cages) where the Oscar win seems to be more of a fluke. I think Brody falls into the latter category
- Campea makes a point that Brody would play Ant-Man for Edgar Wright. This could be interpreted as Ant-Man is not in The Avengers, or the Ant-Man in The Avengers could be portrayed by another actor or a flaw came up with Marvel’s casting of Fillion. Since Nathan Fillion already pretty much confirmed that Hank Pym would be in Joss Whedon’s film, that leaves the other two. I doubt that Marvel, a company that is trying to build continuity between all of its franchises, would allow two actors play the same role in the same continuity twice. Since we are now facing an Ed Norton-less Bruce Banner, having Fillion and Brody both play Hank Pym would be silly. I hope this doesn’t mean Fillion is out. I doubt that contract could be an issue. I could see, however, Marvel going with Brody having more prestige and name recognition. If that is true, and this is all just speculation on my part, it’s the kind of thing that makes you say “grrr”
- El Mayimbe’s tweet quotes Brody’s agency as they were “pursing”, which I take to mean pursuing, Ant-Man, not the other way around. I read this like Brody wants to play Ant-Man and is trying to sell Marvel on the idea. So the Fillion could still be valid. And if this whole leak was a way for Brody’s people to get the idea of the actor as Ant-Man out their hoping the public would be all abuzz in a good way over the casting (not saying it is, I have no inside information), it didn’t work for me. I’d prefer a charismatic actor in the role over an idiosyncratic one any day.
But I stress to say that this is all rumor. It’s just as likely actor other than Brody or Fillion would be announce for the role, or no announcement be made what so ever. Regardless, we should find out in four days.
