Has there been a superhero movie quite so fraught as Ant-Man? Since the departure of Edgar Wright as director, Marvel’s movie about the remarkable shrinking man has gone through several different permutations, including a major script rewrite by Adam McKay and star Paul Rudd. Now, we are finally beginning to get a picture of what this Ant-Man will look like…and apparently Rudd’s Scott Lang will have a slight change of profession.
In a recently released story synopsis from Marvel Studios (via Comic Book Movie), we learn that Scott Lang has switched his profession from “con man” to “master thief.” In the film, Lang will “embrace his inner hero” and help his mentor Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) plan a heist that will save the world.
Switching Lang’s resume from con man to master thief might just be a canny PR move from Marvel: “master thief” sounds a lot more heroic. It also means that Lang is already an uber-talented ubermensch, instead of being just your run-of-the-mill con man who gets superpowers via an awesome suit. While this change might annoy some of the fans of Ant-Man, the rest of us will probably not see much reason to get upset.
Another important little element of the new synopsis is the “TBD” screenplay credit. Marvel is going to have an interesting time with determining who should get credit for the screenplay, what with Wright and Joe Cornish having a hand in the original script that has since undergone rewrites from Rudd and McKay. There shall undoubtedly be a bit of disagreement with the Writers Guild over this issue.
Ant-Man will see the light of day on July 17, 2015. Given this economy, that’s plenty of time for Scott Lang to switch jobs again.