Marvel has unveiled huge plans for phase three of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) Thursday, and the studio also announced some surprising details to the "Ant-Man" sequel.
According to Marvel, after "Ant-Man" was introduced to movie fans over the summer this year, the next film set for this comic book hero is slated to run in theaters in July 2018. However, the studio did the most unexpected move when it also said that the sequel is going to feature both the Ant-Man with The Wasp in the lead, and it's the first time that Marvel named a film with a female superhero in the title, according to Vox.
"Ant Man and The Wasp" will have Paul Rudd and Evangeline Lilly expectedly reprising their roles, of course, when Lilly was only supposed to play The Wasp briefly. "When I signed on with that contract, I knew there was a chance I would never do another Marvel film, but they make you sign them anyway," Lilly told Zap2It last July. "I hope I actually get to fulfill that contract."
"Wasp is such a huge character, and Hope is such a big part of ['Ant-Man'], her character journey is such a big part of that movie," said Marvel executive Kevin Feige in the Zap2It report. At that time, the sequel's details haven't been cleared yet since the first movie was still running in theaters, but the executive already hinted about how the studio sees "Ant-Man."
"We thought it would be a disservice to the Wasp to just have her show up - 'Hello, I'm wearing the costume now! Goodbye!' - because there's too much else going on in that movie," Feige added.
Meanwhile, apart from the "Ant-Man" news, Marvel dished out the rest of their plans for the third phase. The studio said that because they will accommodate "Ant-Man and The Wasp" in their schedule, other movies will essentially be reshuffled.
Consequently, what this means is that Marvel's "Black Panther," which was originally slated for a July 2018 release, will be moved up to February 2018, while "Captain Marvel" will be moved to a later date - March 2019. According to Wired, this is the second time "Captain Marvel" was pushed off schedule. It originally had a July theater date and was then pushed to November to accommodate "Spider-Man."
Marvel also said that there are plans to release three other superhero movies in the year 2020, but the studio didn't reveal any further details about this.
