The Marvel marketing machine is focused squarely on Netflix’s Daredevil which released Friday and Avengers: Age of Ultron
which begins releasing in theaters in the coming weeks, but even now,
Marvel Studios can’t let their next film release fall out of the
spotlight. In fact, it’s that very project which needs the most marketing out of the bunch.
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We’re of course talking about Ant-Man which has a long and troubled development history and just might be the most difficult feature film to sell for the studio to date. Marvel’s no stranger to having challenges with directors over the years, but with Ant-Man,
a project that only exists because of its original director, it’s the
studio’s biggest challenge to date and one that they’re going to address
immediately.
At
the very first Marvel Studios Comic-Con panel back in 2006 where the
young at-the-time-independent production house announced Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk and Ant-Man, Edgar Wright was part of the panel and spoke about his vision for the unlikeliest Avenger. For Wright, Ant-Man was actually a screenplay he wrote for another studio before Marvel regained the rights and for nearly a decade afterwards Ant-Man slowly developed with script revisions until it would finally became a reality. And then it did.
Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige, when finally giving the film a title card and release date, said that Ant-Man only
exists because of Edgar Wright. So you can understand the skepticism
when Marvel had to announce just weeks before filming was set to begin
that they had parted ways with Wright.
Marvel found a directorial replacement in Peyton Reed and enlisted the help of Adam McKay to revise the script (with star Paul Rudd co-writing). The goal was to fit the film better
into the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe plans. The exodus of Edgar
Wright however, remains a tough fact for skeptics to overcome, and it
didn’t help that the first Ant-Man trailer failed to leave an overly positive impression.
More: Ant-Man Analysis & Character Guide
Now, Marvel is in a position marketing their biggest project ever in Avengers: Age of Ultron
and need to follow it up with an odd solo character origins film that’s
on its surface less appealing, has a smaller cast, and a rough
development history. It’s not a good position to be in heading into the
final months of Phase 2 of the MCU.
Fortunately, the marketing arm is about to kick things into gear and today at the Avengers 2
press conference, the studio made sure to remind all of the media in
attendance of what’s up next. They played a brand new trailer for Ant-Man,
the second full-length trailer for the feature and the first
impressions on social media were very positive. Feige confirmed here
that Ant-Man trailer #2 will release online Monday, April 13th.
It’s smart to use Avengers marketing events – where they fly in media from around the world – to tease Ant-Man. They’d be even smarter to use Age of Ultron to tease the film directly as well when it hits theaters.
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Next: First Official Image of Ant-Man’s Villain
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The
next evolution of the Marvel Cinematic Universe brings a founding
member of The Avengers to the big screen for the first time with Marvel
Studios’ “Ant-Man.” Armed with the astonishing ability to shrink
in scale but increase in strength, master thief Scott Lang must embrace
his inner-hero and help his mentor, Dr. Hank Pym, protect the secret
behind his spectacular Ant-Man suit from a new generation of
towering threats. Against seemingly insurmountable obstacles, Pym and
Lang must plan and pull off a heist that will save the world.
Marvel’s
“Ant-Man” stars Paul Rudd as Scott Lang aka Ant-Man, Evangeline Lilly
as Hope Van Dyne, Corey Stoll as Darren Cross aka Yellowjacket, Bobby
Cannavale as Paxton, Michael Peña as Luis, Judy Greer as Maggie, Tip
“Ti” Harris as Dave, David Dastmalchian as Kurt, Wood Harris as Gale,
Jordi Mollà as Castillo and Michael Douglas as Hank Pym. Directed by
Peyton Reed and produced by Kevin Feige, Marvel’s “Ant-Man” delivers a
high-stakes, tension-filled adventure on July 17, 2015.
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