A Geeky Viewpoint

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/joss-whedon-ant-man-edgar-790740
http://www.ew.com/article/2015/01/08/ant-man-paul-rudd-edgar-wright
http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites/JoshWildingNewsAndReviews/news/?a=119418

In a day filled with release of images Peyton Reed, director of the forth coming Ant-Man film gives an interview with Entertainment Weekly addressing a couple of minor issues and gives us our first look at the films antagonist Darren Cross AKA Yellow Jacket in full costume.

Image Courtesy of Entertainment Weekly

Peyton Reed indicates there will not be extensive reshoots, rather the usual case of minor additional photography to complete a few shots.   “We are going to do a little bit of additional photography, but we have not done any yet. It’s minor stuff.”

In my fan-mail I received a question from James who would like to know:

What are the early [box office] projections for the upcoming super-hero movies? 

Limiting ourselves to the seven films that are currently in filming or post-production for this question lets take a look at these films:

Avengers: Age of Ultron: The biggest limiting factor to breaking every know opening weekend domestic box-office record ever conceived is the lack of large format screens.   The movie will lack some of the luster of its predecessor and clearly has no competition in the box office for weeks before or weeks after.
Prediction - $225 Million Opening Weekend Domestic / $590 M Domestic / $1.1 Billion Overseas

Ant-Man: A quirky Marvel film with no direct connection to the Marvel Cinematic Universe and is considered a part of phase two of marvel films.  

Prediction - $75 M Opening Weekend Domestic / $190 M Domestic / $325 M Overseas

Fantastic Four: A remake of the 2005 campy film less family friendly dropped into a very competitive month.   I doubt the remake will sell more tickets than the previous two movies only inflation will help raise its mark, some.

Prediction - $65 M Opening Weekend Domestic / $140 M Domestic / $275 M Overseas
I have a feeling right now that I am being generous with the Overseas total.  I know that several early predictions have roughly the same number but I am not sure the model is accurate for this film.  

Deadpool: An R Rated super hero film with a lot more social buzz than the others in that category.   A lower budget than many of those films, good social buzz so far.

Prediction - $35 M Opening Weekend Domestic / $90 M Domestic / $200 M Overseas
Hard to predict an R rated movie in this genre, how much potential audience is being blocked out. 

Captain America: Civil War: The Avengers reassemble in a Captain America story line which most likely sees our hero killed at the end of the movie.

Prediction - $150 M Opening Weekend Domestic / $500 M Domestic / $700 M Overseas

X-Men: Apocalypse: The closing of the trilogy of the younger cast bringing in several new faces.

Prediction - $125 M Opening Weekend Domestic / $400 M Domestic / $700 M Overseas

Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice: Our lone DC film on the list, with out much to compare to at the moment.   The buzz is negative or neutral at best at the moment.   Release dates flopped around several times.

Prediction - $125 Million Opening Weekend Domestic / $300 M Domestic / $400 M Overseas

Our friends at Stitch Kingdom recently got their hands on a updated plot synopses for Ant-Man.

The information provided by Stitch Kingdom begins to fill in the gap over the departure of Edgar Wright from the project.

There is a relatively minor change in Scott Lang (who is being portrayed by Paul Rudd) has been transformed from a Con-Man to Master Thief.   TomaTO TomatOH

The second change is a change in the back story and potentially an explanation on Hayley Atwell's character Peggy Carter being included in the film.   Hank Pym (portrayed by Michael Douglas) is now listed as a founding member of Avengers, in the comic book universe he is as well as his wife Janet Van Dyne.   Potentially we have a few older members of the Marvel Universe (cough cough Doctor Strange cough cough) that are being setup as the original Avengers that predate the current slate of MCU Avengers [which I will call Pre-Avengers].   The story in Ant-Man will be told as either flashbacks or introduction of the film.

A rumor that is currently making the rounds is that Janet Van Dyne, the original Wasp, was killed in action during the first class of Pre-Avengers in action, her death caused Hank Pym to stop using his powers.

If that is true the original Pre-Avengers include Doctor Strange, Hank Pym's Ant Man, Janet Van Dyne (Wasp), Peggy Carter and Howard Stark.

Stay Tooned

Back when Edgar Wright backed out of directing Ant-Man there was lots of speculation that Adam McKay was the man for the job.   Officially after speaking with Marvel he declined due to the films he has already scheduled to work on.

Adam did however step in to help with the script and provide work on the script, which involved multiple weeks locked in hotel rooms with Ant-Man lead Paul Rudd. 

How impressed was Marvel with Adam McKay.   Rumor has it that Marvel has offered a future film to Adam McKay.

Black Panther Anyone?

Recent rumor mill suggests that Janet van Dyne, aka the Wasp, is now slated to appear in next summer's Ant Man film.

Janet can Dyne's was a founding member of the Comic Book version of the Avengers back in the 60's and was married to the original Ant-Man Hank Pym before they divorced.