It’s a pretty exciting moment to be able to sit down and chat with not only the director of a major Marvel movie but also the PRESIDENT of Marvel Studios! Seeing a Marvel movie is such a fun experience but being able to chat with the people that make these movies possible is even better. Recently I got the chance to sit down and chat with Ant-Man Director Peyton Reed and Ant-Man Producer and President of Marvel Studios Kevin Feige. These two guys are so down to Earth and as friendly as can be. This was a wonderful experience especially for a huge Marvel fan like myself.
If you have seen Ant-Man (I hope you have!) then you know that it’s pretty funny. It’s got Paul Rudd as the lead character, so you know it’s going to be humorous. When we asked Peyton Reed, director of Ant-Man, what it was like to film a Marvel film that was more on the humorous side here is what he had to say.
In terms of the comedy I love the idea that it can have big stakes and have heart but it’s funny and I really like the idea. I wanted to make it sort of a tight, fun movie that hopefully is a repeat movie going experience that makes you feel good and it’s fun. And in particular when you have Paul Rudd at the center of it you know, it’s gonna be funny.
I’m not sure if you know much about Peyton Reed, but he is a pretty amazing director. He’s directed such major hits including Bring It On, The Break-Up, and Yes-Man. Ant-Man is a huge departure form the types of films that Peyton has directed in the past. We asked him what it was like directing this type of film and joining the Marvel universe. His response is great!
Well, it’s a kind of movie that I’ve wanted to do for a really long time and technically, it’s a big departure. There are I think 1600 visual effects in the movie, it’s a big deal in that regard. But it really is what Marvel does extremely well. I mean, we have Jake Morrison who’s our Visual Effects Supervisor. I spent a lot of time with him and sort of talking about the look of the movie and the realism that we wanted. We were gonna be doing what’s hopefully the definitive “shrinking movie” for 2015. And we really wanted it to, unless there are other shrinking movies that I don’t know about but, you know, it had to look as photorealistic as possible.
And it really had to put the viewer down in that environment. When he shrinks down we were gonna be shrinking the audience down with him. And what would that look like and feel and how are we gonna achieve that? ‘Cause if he’s running across a table I wanted to really feel like the texture of the table and all that. So Marvel just happens to employ the top people in Hollywood for doing that and it was a huge education for me in that regard and but loved it. It’s amazing and the stuff that they are able to pull off is, it’s kind of mind-boggling.
For those Marvel fans wondering if we will see Hawkeye and Ant-Man join forces, here is what Kevin Feige, the president of Marvel studios had to say about that! (WARNING POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT)
That’s a great image, I love that image and usually images I love find their way into movies. So…
One of the biggest scenes in Ant-Man is the heist scene which takes a lot of research to pull off the right way. Peyton did a great job of making this scene super realistic. Here are his thoughts on where he drew inspiration for directing it.
I actually did go back and look at a bunch of heist movies, you know, Oceans Eleven and Thomas Crown Affair and things like that. But there’s a certain rhythm that these heist movies have and they’re sort of, they’re sort of tropes that appear in these movies. But I wanted to be really kinetic and have a lot of movement to it. And I think there is a big correlation between how a comedy plays and how you shoot a comedy to how you build tension. It was something that was always there in the original scripts. Edgar and Joe wrote where it was a heist movie structure and there’s something really really fun about that.
And when Adam McKay and Paul Rudd came on to write I really wanted to sort of enhance that and we had a lot of fun. We knew there was gonna be a moment where Scott Lang was gonna be tempted to go back into a life of crime. And he had to know that the tip was solid so he goes to Michael Peña he goes, “Tell me about that tip.” Now, if you ask Louis about a tip it might not be a straight answer, you know. We loved the idea and we sort of added that in pre-production as we were writing like this is a fun element of a guy who sometimes goes off point as he tells these stories. And it also kinda helped build Michael Peña’s character as this guy who has this unsuspected depth to him. He’s a connoisseur of wines and he’s into expressionist art and he cooks waffles for the guy. I love the idea of how crazy that was.
But the heist movie idea was a fun structure to work in. And something that came about was in all the heist movies, they’ve got the plan in place, everything’s in place but, “Oh no, there’s just one element that we still have to get and I think it was Adam McKay who came in and said, “What if that required Ant Man who’s not quite prepared to go in and maybe face this other Marvel character? I loved that idea immediately, I thought that idea was fantastic. As a kid Marvel characters meet each other and how does this power stack up with this one? And so that was something that was incredibly fun to shoot in the movie and really sort of served the purpose in the plot of it’s this, he’s thrown into this way before he’s ready to come up against the guy like the guy he comes up against.
What Made Peyton Reed want to direct a movie such as Ant-Man?
Well, as I said, I’d wanted to do this kind of movie for a long time and then specifically I had wanted to do a Marvel movie for a long time. Years ago, too many years, probably 2003, I developed Fantastic Four for a time and that’s where I first met Kevin. And I did not end up doing that movie but it was something that I really wanted to do and I actually came in and pitched on Guardians of the Galaxy, and so when Ant Man came about, when the opportunity came up I really jumped at the chance. I knew the character from the comics. I had wanted to work with Paul Rudd for a long time, I had known Paul and we had never had a chance to work together, so it just made sense. And I think when I came in and met with Kevin about kind of “what I would like to do with the movie,” as a fan what I wanted to see in the movie, I really feel like we were of “like mind” about what the movie could be.
What was the Most challenging scene for Peyton? His Answer may surprise you!
Paul Rudd’s shirtless scene was very challenging. As strange as it was to watch him work out, to sit and have a really nice lunch and watch him eat one almond for lunch. No, probably the most challenging thing was essentially Ant Man has a couple of powers, shrinking, how are we gonna realize the shrinking and make it seem absolutely real? But the second power, he controls ants. I was intrigued by that story wise about it’s so absurd as a power and I loved that the movie really answers the audience’s question about, “Well, how can that be cool?” or “How can that achieve anything?”
And I loved that we were able to tell the story of there are these distinct types of ants and they have specific skill sets. And they’re all based in reality. I love that a kid can see the movie and he’s like, “Oh a carpenter ant, how could that happen?” They go on Wikipedia or they read a book about them and it’s all based in fact and these fire ants, they make rope ladders and they can make bridges and they actually can. That would’ve appealed to me as a kid, but that was a big challenge is how we create these ants and make them seem like real ants, give them specific qualities and characters.
And I think specifically with the character of Antony we talked a lot about like “Can we create a Lone Ranger/Silver dynamic?” as Roy Rogers is with Ant Man? ‘Cause in the comics that’s one of the big iconic images is Ant Man on the wings of a carpenter ant and it’s pretty, it’s a potentially kind of silly thing but we wanted to make it real and like really cool and maybe go further and what if they had this kind of nice relationship and then what if something happened to poor Ant Man, I mean, it really appealed to us about creating a real sort of relationship between these two and I loved that we were able to do that.
And The Million Dollar Question is…What is Peyton Reed’s favorite type of ant?
Yeah I’m a big Bullet Ant fan.
Ant-Man is now playing in theaters everywhere! Go see it. For more on my thoughts on the movie, check out my Ant-Man movie review.