Review by C.J. Bunce
For my money Ant-Man is the second best movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe behind Captain America: The First Avenger, and it’s the most fun. Three years after Marvel Cinematic Universe puppetmaster Kevin Feige put the Marvel Comics superheroes The Avengers together on the big screen in its first live action team-up, they moved all the A-list superheroes aside to make way for Ant-Man, Marvel Comics’ historical homage to The Incredible Shrinking Man. This time the MCU combined into one story two versions of a character, the 1962 original scientist superhero Dr. Hank Pym and his 1979 troubled successor Scott Lang. The result is a feast for the eyes, updating visuals first encountered by audiences in the Universal Monsters classic for a new generation. How did director Peyton Reed take the characters from idea to the big screen? You’ll marvel at the biggest iteration of the Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, and Jack Kirby creation in Ant-Man: The Art of the Movie, available for pre-order now here at Amazon and coming to bookstores next month.
Ant-Man: The Art of the Movie is the eleventh of 24 books in its re-sized, re-issued MCU library coming from Titan Books. A great feature of the series is how each book takes a unique look at its subject film. In this case, it’s the incredible focus on perspective.
Writer Jacob Johnston interviewed Kevin Feige, executive producers Brad Winderbaum and Louis D’Esposito, director Peyton Reed, production designer Shepherd Frankel, cinematographer Russell Carpenter, visual effects supervisor Jake Morrison, visual effects producer Diana Giorgiutti, editor Dan Lebitol, editor Colby Parker, Jr., costume designer Sammy Sheldon Differ, heads of visual development Charlie Wen and Ryan Meinerding, concept artists Andy Park, Jackson Sze, Anthony Francisco, Andrew Kim, and Rodney Fuentebella, and actor Paul Rudd, and reproduced storyboards from Bryan Andrews, Danielle Davenport, David Krentz, Jim Magdaleno, Steve Markowski, Jay Olive, and Jim Rothwell.
After a review of Ant-Man in the comics and how director Peyton Reed pulled the story ideas together for the movie, the book provides an expansive look at the design and creation of Ant-Man’s supersuit. Costume designer Sammy Sheldon Differ describes the complexity of the design, putting together nearly 500 pieces of fabric, rubber, leather, and hard materials. All in readers will find hundreds of images of concepts, near-final, and final views of the suit Paul Rudd would wear in the movie.
The story itself is one big heist movie, but the producers describe how it’s also a movie about mentors and a pair of fathers and daughters. Production designer Shepherd Frankel describes finding an actual 1912 bank vault door, which they used for the vault Scott breaks into in Dr. Pym’s basement. Pym’s high-tech home is reproduced in several versions, each a different take on that other comics publisher’s Batcave. Keeping with the theme of this book series on concept art, expect to see all sorts of angles on scenes that would make it to the final cut, but it doesn’t explain the special effects and how it was done in much detail. The best de-aging scene of all the MCU is a young Michael Douglas as Dr. Pym at the beginning of the movie, which is not addressed, but that’s more than made up for with coverage of the finale’s epic tiny battle on Cassie Lang’s toy train set.
Artist Jackson Sze recounts how one key sequence is an homage to Bruce Lee’s Enter the Dragon–that’s the shrinking imagery that mirrors the facets of a diamond. Because of the crazy visual subject matter, the storyboards are more vivid and animated than those we’ve seen in the previous entries in the MCU. Scott and the flying carpenter ant is one of the first big action scenes, and the final edit looks much like the original idea on paper. Surprisingly, if you wonder why no Yellowjacket costume was on display with the Ant-Man costumes at San Diego Comic-Con, it’s because no physical costume was ever created–that was all done by the visual effects team. Although they are barely seen in the first Ant-Man film, concept art for both costumes for The Wasp are explored. If you love insects, this book is for you, as each major ant in the film gets a full spread feature concept paintings. And for fans of all things borg, you even get to see the cyborg versions of these ants, which sadly didn’t make it to the final film.
With this eleventh of 24 volumes in the re-sized, re-issued MCU library coming from Titan Books, don’t miss our reviews of other books in the series: Captain America: The First Avenger–The Art of the Movie, here, our review of The Art of Marvel Studios’ The Avengers here, The Art of Marvel Studios’ Iron Man 3 here, The Art of Marvel Studios’ Thor: The Dark World here), The Art of Captain America and the Winter Soldier here, The Art of Guardians of the Galaxy here, and The Art of Avengers: Age of Ultron here.
For every fan of the Marvel Infinity Saga, don’t miss Ant-Man: The Art of the Movie, available for pre-order now here at Amazon, expected in stores March 25, 2025. Marvel Studios’ Ant-Man is streaming on Disney+.
