To the glee of countless fans, Marvel Studios announced that legendary actress and former Catwoman star, Michelle Pfeiffer will take the role of the Orginal Wasp, Janet Van Dyne, in the forthcoming Ant-Man sequel, Ant-Man and the Wasp.
Joining Michelle Pfeiffer will be Laurence Fishburne. Fishburne will take on the role of Dr. Bill Foster better known as Goliath.
Marvel Studios made the announcement this weekend at San Diego Comic Con!
In Ant-Man, we saw Janet Van Dyne, the Wasp, get trapped in the Quantum Realm after going sub-atomic to stop a missile from raining destruction in the United States.
Her sacrifice is a major focal point for the characters and their motivations. The relationship between Michael Douglas’ Hank Pym and his daughter, Evangeline Lilly’s Hope Van Dyne, is a great example of this. Hope struggles to understand why Hank doesn’t want her to don the suit. In fact, they have open disagreements about funny man Paul Rudd’s Scott Lang becoming Ant-Man due to his inexperience and shall we say somewhat tarnished reputation. We also saw Hank Pym battle with survivor’s guilt and the utter toll it took on him from a mental standpoint.
The story line drastically differs from the original comics where Hope Van Dyne is a founding member of the Avengers and a long time leader of the team.
In the first film, Dr. Hank Pym recruits a new Ant-Man in the likes of Scott Lang. Lang is trained to control the suit and an army of mind controlled ants. With all of that, he saves the secret of the “Pym Particle” from those who wished to weaponize it for personal profit.
Along with the casting of Pfeiffer as Janet van Dyne and Fishburne as Goliath, Marvel also revealed some test footage. Brand Davis reports, “Concept and test footage reveals Hank Pym in an Ant-Man costume. A trip to quantum realm. The Wasp, in a yellow suit, in action. A truck shrinks then becomes larger to blow another truck off of the road. The logo plays and Giant-Man peaks out from behind a building at traffic, hiding behind it.”
The sequel will see director Peyton Reed return to the director’s chair. Andrew Barrer and Garbiel Farrari on screenplay with Adam McKay and Paul Rudd returning to write the story.
Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Michael Pena, Michael Douglas, T.I., and David Dastmalchian will all be returning for the sequel.
Are you excited to see Michelle Pfeiffer return to comic fandom as Janet van Dyne?