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Ant-Man: Edgar Wright May Have Left... But It Still Looks Great

Earlier today, Yahoo Movies was privileged enough to pay a visit to Disney’s London HQ and take a look at the DVD and Blu-ray extras for ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’ which is out now.

We chuckled at the blooper reel, learned a new catchphrase from Anthony Mackie (“Cut the Cheque”), and marveled at the behind-the-scenes trivia (the Russo brothers took inspiration from ‘Heat’… Who knew?).

However, once the extras had finished, we were also treated to a sneak peek at ‘Ant-Man’, Marvel’s Summer 2015 offering, in the shape of some brief preview footage.

And it looked fantastic. If you’re worried about Marvel’s next film after ‘The Avengers: Age of Ultron’, then maybe you should reconsider.

It’s the same footage that debuted at San Diego Comic-Con, but without the thousands of fan-boys screaming over every reveal.

Here’s what we saw.

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The footage that we were shown was brief – very brief, ant-sized you might say (sorry) - which is unsurprising as filming on the troubled superhero film has only just begun in Atlanta - see tweet below.

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It kicks off in a science lab, with the camera panning across various bits of scientific equipment, until it lays to rest on the distinctive red Ant-Man helmet. There are no actors on-screen so we suspect this was shot specifically for Comic-Con using the real-life sets that are waiting to be used. Over the footage we hear Michael Douglas as Hank Pym talking to Paul Rudd, who plays Scott Lang.

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There’s some snappy dialogue with Pym asking Lang to do a “small job for him”. Lang is unsure, and Pym jokes that “his b*lls have been shrunk”.

To give it some context, Hank Pym is the original Ant-Man and the creator of a super-suit that helps him to shrink to microscopic size and control insects using the helmet. Lang is the next generation of Ant-Man who teams up with his mentor to pull off some sort of heist. It’s unsure if both their intentions are good in the final film, but it seems unlikely.

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Next in the footage we cut to Ant-Man himself. He’s ant-sized and appears to be in some sort of lab or server room.

The detail is incredible. The environment around him, with its giant glowing servers and everyday objects transformed into towering structures, is like a sci-fi cityscape. Tiny dust motes swirl around the tiny hero giving you a real sense of the scale he’s working in.

Lang’s Ant-Man is communicating with Pym using the suit, but there’s something wrong with his helmet. He needs to escape and Pym instructs him to communicate with “his ride” but he’s having some troubles with grasping his new powers. His ride is revealed to be a flying ant (or wasp, it’s hard to tell) which towers above him.

Ant-Man scurries across the lab and takes a flying leap into the darkness, only to be caught by the flying beast, allowing him to soar away and escape through a vent, with a swarm of insects swirling around him. Lang has learned how to use the suit.

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It’s not clear if the scene was lifted from the final film - we think it’s more likely test footage to prove the concept works. And it does. Emphatically.

If you were expecting something akin to ‘The Borrowers’ or ‘Honey, I Shrunk The Kids’, then you’re way off the mark. The ‘Ant-Man’ Comic-Con footage proved that small doesn’t always mean cute. It may seem like a weird concept, but after the success of this summer’s ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ proved, “weird” is Marvel’s realm now.

It’s welcome news for fans following the troubled production ‘Ant-Man’ has had so far.

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Cult British director Edgar Wright dropped out of the project earlier this year citing “creative differences” with Marvel over the “vision of the film”. He had been working on the script since 2003 and it was due to start filming any day, so the news came as a big surprise to fans. A number of directors were courted by the Disney off-shoot to helm the film, before ‘Yes Man’ director Peyton Reed was brought on board.

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Above from left: Michael Douglas, Evageline Lilly, Paul Rudd, Corey Stoll and Peyton Reed, the cast and director of ‘Ant-Man’

He only has a short time to turn the film around as it’s due for release in July 2015 – that’s less than a year to shoot it and complete the post-production. With Marvel’s marketing ploy of release-date flag-planting, a delay to the film would cause much embarrassment for the studio, so it’s going to be all hands on deck to ensure the film hits its release date.

After 10 films, the studio knows how to turn its films around on time, and all eyes will be on ‘Ant-Man’ to kick off “Phase 3” of the Marvel Cinematic Universe after the ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’ wraps up “Phase 2” in May next year.

Marvel simply won’t allow Peyton Reed’s film to fail, and on the strength of the preview footage alone, we think it’s time to show a little faith and stop worrying about ‘Ant-Man’.

‘Ant-Man’ is coming to cinemas July 2015.

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Image credit: Marvel/Getty Images