Evangeline Lilly In Ant-Man Talks

[Andy Chalk]

Evangeline Lilly In Ant-Man Talks

Evangeline Lilly of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is reportedly in talks to take on the female lead in the upcoming Marvel movie Ant-Man.

The Ant-Man cast looks set to be given another high-profile boost with the addition of Evangeline Lilly, who according to Variety is now in "early talks" to join the film as the female lead. Lilly is best known for her work as series regular Kate Austen in Lost, and more recently as Tauriel in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.

It's not known what role she'll play but the word on the street is that it won't be a pre-existing character like Janet Van Dyne, AKA the Wasp and the wife of original Ant-Man Henry Pym. Instead, "insiders" say she'll play Pym's daughter, who becomes the love interest of second-gen Ant-Man Scott Lang. In the comics, Pym doesn't have a daughter and Lang becomes Ant-Man by stealing Pym's super-suit.

Marvel hasn't yet commented but the continuity change-up makes sense as an easy (and not terribly heavy) way to tie the two characters together. It also fits from an age perspective: Lilly is 34, while Paul Rudd, starring as Lang, is 44 and Michael Douglas, who plays Pym, is 69.

Source: Variety [http://variety.com/2014/film/news/evangeline-lilly-marvels-ant-man-1201059601/]


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[Mirrorknight]

Well, having Ant-Man not be Pym does get around the whole comic's story of Pym being a wife-beating bastard. Then Captain America found out and beat the ever loving crap out of him and told him "Get big so I have something to hit."

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

You say Evangeline Lilly of The Hobbit, I say Evangeline Lilly of LOST. She was awesome in LOST.

 

[Trishbot]

Huh. She'd make a pretty good Wasp. I'm up for it. Sure. Let's do this thing.

Also, yeah, making her less the spouse-abused victim and more of her own character that isn't reliant on said spouse-abusing husband would be a good change of pace for Janet.

 

[vid87]

I'm not wild about the possibility of Janet being retconned into the daughter - it almost seems like the writers bent over backwards to get the 50's storyline and Douglas in on this - and I'm REALLY not looking forward to the whole "Dad / boyfriend feud over a woman" thing that's been done in every sitcom ever (calling it now: there will be a variation on the line, "I've got no problem going back to prison" from Douglas).

That said, if the daughter ISN'T Janet, that may mean Janet has yet to appear and, based on the ages of the other actors, she might be cast in her 50's or so. That's interesting in itself, but it might also mean that the daughter becomes a retrofitted identity like Yellow Jacket or even a brand new character altogether!

I'm hoping it's the latter because this is shaky enough to start with (premise, premiere right after Avengers 2, director doesn't have the best track record at the box-office), and rewriting a cast that fans are already frustrated at not being involved with the Avengers when most of their signature storylines are happening without them is going to be another nail in the coffin as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Toadfish1]

She's playing the female lead in an Ant-Man movie?

How well can she take a punch?

 

[Mr. Q]

I'm hoping that Evangeline is being cast for Janet Van Dyne rather than any of the gobbledygook the "streets" is speaking of. I was put on edge when they announced that Michael Douglas would be playing Hank Pym while Paul Rudd was cast as Scott Lang. I really don't want this to take anymore liberties with the cannon just because of bad writing from decades ago that tarnished a comic book character's legacy.

 

[Mortuorum]

It's not known what role she'll play but the word on the street is that it won't be a pre-existing character like Janet Van Dyne, AKA the Wasp and the wife of original Ant-Man Henry Pym.

Way to get my hopes up then dash them to the ground.

Is the Scott Lang character really so interesting that we're ditching Henry Pym in favor oh him in both the animated series and (now) the cinematic universe? And what do we need to do to get some love for the Wasp?

Maybe this is just their way of lowering my expectations.

Still... Michael Douglas?