Marvel’s ‘Ant-Man’ Begins Production
After ten years, two directors, and several months of well-documented troubles,Ant-Manhas finally gone into production. DirectorPeyton Reedannounced the good news today.
Paul RuddandMichael Douglaslead the Marvel movie as Scott Lang and Hank Pym, respectively, whileCorey Stoll,Evangeline Lilly, andMichael Peñaround out the rest of the cast. Hit the jump for more details.
Alright, gang. Today is the day.
LET’S. GET. small.#AntMan
— Peyton Reed (@MrPeytonReed)June 01, 2025
Shooting willreportedlybegin in San Francisco, under the working title “Bigfoot,” before moving to Atlanta.
Ant-Manwas originally on track to begin shooting this spring. But directorEdgar Wright’s last-minute exit threw the project for a loop. Production was delayed while Marvel scrambled to find a replacement.Ruben Fleischer,Adam McKay, andDavid Wainwere among the filmmakers considered before Reed finally won the job.
When he dropped out, Wright (along withJoe Cornish) had been working onAnt-Manfor over a decade — first with Artisan Entertainment, who held the rights at the time, and then with Marvel Studios, who officially hired him to direct in 2006.
Wright and Cornish spent the next several years developingAnt-Maneven as they released other films. In 2012, Marvel got a head start on building hype by showing a reel of test footage at Comic-Con; an official release date was announced a few months later.
From there, things seemed to be going well for a while. Wright completed his script in 2013 and started putting together a top-notch cast. It therefore came as a huge shock when he left the project over creative differences, though it’s since become clear that trouble had been brewing for a while.
Rumor has it that a rewrite of Wright and Cornish’s original script was what prompted their exit. Since then,Ant-Manhas undergone a couple more rewrites, first byAdam McKayand then byGabriel FerrariandAndrew Barrer.
So theAnt-Mangoing into production today isn’t exactly the sameAnt-Manthat Wright was supposed to start filming back in May. Nevertheless, Reed’s version of the film will retain certain elements from Wright’s version,including some of the visuals.
Which puts Reed in an awkward position. It’ll be impossible to sort out Wright’s contributions from Reed’s in the final product — and since so many fans are still upset about Wright’s departure, Reed may end up getting blamed for anything that goes wrong while Wright gets credit for anything that goes right.
But the good news for Reed is that he has almost a full year to get people to come around. And, well, that he’s directingAnt-Man. A Marvel movie is the closest thing Hollywood has to a surefire hit these days, so by this time next year he should be sitting pretty.
