Production has officially begun for Ant-Man and The Wasp, the sequel to the 2015 film Ant-Man. Marvel Studios marked the occasion with the release of a cute, 14-second video that simply features the personalized actor chairs along with the reveal of a new film logo.
The two naturally shrunken chairs are not actually for the actors, but rather for the two main characters, who will be played by Paul Rudd, reprising the role of Scott Lang, aka. Ant-Man, and Evangeline Lilly as Hope van Dyne, aka The Wasp.
Also appearing in the film, reprising their starring and supporting roles, will be Michael Pena, Michael Douglas, Bobby Cannavale, Abby Ryder Fortson, Tip “T.I.” Harris, and David Dastmalchian. New to the sequel, however, will be Michelle Pfeiffer, playing Janet van Dyne, Laurence Fishburne (Dr. Bill Foster/Goliath), Hannah John-Kamen (Ghost), Walton Goggins (Sonny Burch), and Randall Park (Jimmy Woo).
The movie, which is scheduled to debut July 6, 2018, is being filmed in both Atlanta and San Francisco. Chris McKenna, Erik Sommers, Andrew Barrer, Andrew Barrer, and Rudd penned the screenplay, while Peyton Reed returns to direct. The movie is produced by Kevin Feige, and executive produced by Louis D’Eposito, Victoria Alonso, Stephen Broussard, Charles Newirth, and Stan Lee.
It will pick up after the events of Captain America: Civil War, as Lang attempts to manage his life as a father and super hero. But when The Wasp and Dr. Hank Pym (Douglas) present an urgent, new mission, he must get to work once again. The official synopsis reads “Scott must once again put on the suit and learn to fight alongside The Wasp as the team works together to uncover secrets from their past.”
Ant-Man, which was distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, marked the 12th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). The movie grossed more than $519 million worldwide, $180.2 million of that in North America, and received generally positive reviews. Its Tomatometer score on review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes is a favorable 81 percent and audience score 86 percent, with the critic consensus that Rudd delivers a “charming performance” and the film offers “Marvel thrills on an appropriately smaller scale.”