Earlier this week, we speculated that the earliest that Marvel Studios may get around to making director Edgar Wright’s Ant-Man adaption with their release schedule being booked through 2014 is 2015. But Marvel co-president and director of the new Marvel One-Shot short film Item 47, Louis D’Esposito hints that the company’s two-films-a-year schedule may be adjusted to let Ant-Man slide in to 2014.
In his interview with Collider, D’Esposito states that there has been some discussion about expanding Marvel’s release schedule beyond the current two films a year timetable and while they don’t want to stretch themselves too thin, they might do so if they were sure that they could maintain the same level of quality that they have so far. Ant-Man might be the place where they start.
That might be an opportunity where we do a third film, depending on his schedule when he finishes World’s End. But he’s such a competent filmmaker; the script is in great shape. The test will prove a lot of things on the visual effects front: how do we handle the shrinking, obviously, and the scale issues, because when he’s small he’s a half-inch. So we’re gonna work that out, maybe that’s when we do a third film.
Given that there has been a lot of positive reaction to the special effects test footage that Edgar Wright shot for the film and which was screened last week at San Diego Comic Con, Marvel certainly has an incentive to get the film out as soon as possible.
Currently, Wright is gearing up to shoot The World’s End, his third cinematic collaboration with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. If he were to jump into Ant-Man right after, he could very easily have the film ready for a 2014 release. Now currently, Marvel has Captain America: The Winter Soldier scheduled for April 4, 2014 and Guardians Of The Galaxy for August 1, 2014. If those dates hold, I could see Marvel possibly dropping Ant-Man into December. Then again they could conceivably rearrange their 2014 dates for Captain America and Guardians Of The Galaxy to accommodate Ant-Man.
