'Ant-Man and the Wasp': Marvel's first superheroine movie

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They made history and 1 billion US dollars with the first titular superhero of color in "Black Panther" – now Marvel's creatives and stars are repeating the trick for gender equality.

"Ant-Man and the Wasp," the sequel to 2015's "Ant-Man," is the 20th release in a decade from the Marvel Cinematic Universe series of comic book movies, and the first to feature a woman in the title.

"We always knew that the next one was going to be 'Ant-Man and the Wasp,'" Kevin Feige, the president of Disney-owned Marvel Studios, told AFP at a global press day for the movie in Pasadena, Southern California on Sunday.

"Ant-Man And The Wasp" Global Junket Press Conference on June 24, 2018, in Los Angeles, United States. /VCG Photo

"It's finally time to see her suit up and be the hero that she said earlier she wanted to be."

The 2015 movie featured Evangeline Lilly's Hope van Dyne as a wannabe superhero and she returns here leaner, meaner and ready to step up on an equal footing with Paul Rudd's Ant-Man.

Lilly told AFP the plan was to introduce the Wasp's origin story in Marvel's 2016 release "Captain America: Civil War" along with Ant-Man and the other Avengers.

Evangeline Lilly, who plays Hope van Dyne. /VCG Photo

"I got a call saying, 'We've decided not to put you in Civil War' and there was this moment, I could tell, where the feeling in the room was like, 'I'm sorry – don't be offended,'" she said.

"I was like, 'Are they going to give me a movie? Is that what they're saying?' And they said, 'We really want to dedicate a film to introducing this female superhero and we don't want her just to be a side note."

'Crazy fun'

The surprise of double-billing came later when Marvel sent her a screen capture with the Wasp in the title.

The premise behind "Ant-Man" is refreshingly simple: Scott Lang, a petty criminal with a lot of heart, can get very big or quantum-level small via a suit that manipulates his subatomic particles.

"Ant-Man and the Wasp" – directed, like the first movie, by Peyton Reed – see Lang languishing under house arrest in San Francisco after being caught as his superhero alter-ego fighting some of the other Avengers in "Civil War."

As he struggles to rebalance his home life with his responsibilities as Ant-Man, he's confronted by Van Dyne and her father, the brilliant quantum physicist Hank Pym, with an urgent new mission.

Actor Michael Douglas, who plays brilliant quantum physicist Hank Pym, pictured with his character's daughter Hope van Dyne played by Evangeline Lilly. /AFP Photo

The original was admired by critics but is one of the least successful MCU releases at box offices worldwide.

That actually means very little when the competition is other Marvel movies – it still went on to a global gross of more than 500 million US dollars.

"Ant-Man and the Wasp" is expected to open domestically around 75 million US dollars over the weekend of July 6 – a considerable improvement on the 57 million US dollars the first film took.

The early social media reaction from preview screenings has been almost universally glowing.

"'Ant-Man and The Wasp' is crazy fun. Very self-contained, but brimming with energy, and full of cool and creative surprises," tweeted CinemaBlend critic Eric Eisenberg.

"Super funny, and the entire cast is wonderful. I had a blast!"

(Cover image from VCG.)

Source(s): AFP