I have been curious about how well they would do with "Ant Man", he's an interesting character for sure, but his power set makes him more of a supporting character/plot devices especially if he's acting as "Ant Man" as opposed to one of his other identities where he can grow (or do both).
My immediate thought is that to really work Ant Man has to be portrayed as a deeply flawed character, he's a genius on the level of Tony Stark or Reed Richard, but even more arrogant, and who wound up beating his wife and then seeking redemption and trying to earn back his friends for years afterwards. As odd as it sound, that's actually one of the driving forces of what turned Pym into a hero, and why he has been willing to go so far since he did things that are hard to forgive or forget that don't involve threatening the world. On some levels being more disliked that even villains like "Doctor Doom" for quite some time. Without that he's just "dude who can shrink and control bugs".
One of the big criticisms of Marvel is that they have already done away with a lot of the flaws inherent in the heroes, Tony Stark for example was never a raging alcoholic (he got drunk once for a fight scene against Rhodey). Nobody has to deal with secret identities... and yet Disney has been under fire to an extent because of how arrogant Thor and Iron Man are, I've read some stuff about "concerned parents" feeling character like Tony Stark who appeal heavily to children in their movie guises, act like jerks. Even without the wife beating, what is that going to say about Pym, when half the point of him is that he's an even bigger jerk than Iron Man.
I anticipate this might be a problem as the cinematic universe goes forward, because one of the thing that "sells" Marvel is that they tend to be a little more realistic with their characters, and as a general rule you don't have many "Paragons" among the group. The good guys have in the past been sexual perverts (even outright prostitutes like Stacy X), alcoholics, recovering dope fiends, teenage runaways (not just "Runaways" either, "Cloak & Dagger" fit this bill as well), wife beaters, racists (The Black Panther and his people have this in spades if understated, hating to ask for outside help, and if you remember the comments when Wakanda gave Falcon his battlesuit right before Civil War it wasn't exactly enlightened) and murderous deranged war veterans (The Punisher). Heck, Emma Frost used to manage a sex club that existed to subvert the upper levels of society... and she wasn't exactly portrayed as being chaste in doing it. This is counter to DC where they have more in the way of "flawless" moral paragon characters, or did pre-reboot (Superman, Captain Marvel, even Batman holds himself to a fairly high standard of moral conduct despite being a vigilante) which seems to define a lot of what people think super-heroes are supposed to be like. As a result I expect that we'll see more "sanitizing" of existing characters, and some that are really hard to do at all without their flaws might be overlooked entirely. Especially given the relative failure of doing things like "The Punisher" while trying to make him a bit more... reasonable... for the audience in the past. On some levels I'm kind of surprised they ever green lit an Ant Man movie to begin with, and I suspect half the problem is they are already getting some comments about the Avengers not being "perfect" so bringing in a really flawed character (even if the wife beating was played down) would be hard. Ant Man is a guy your supposed to be able to cheer for, and really hate, at the same time. He kind of demonstrates that "good and evil" don't always go entirely one way, and what's more he actually does have something to redeem himself for, and it's the kind of thing real people grapple with, and isn't any easier to be forgiven for as a super hero than it is in real life.
My immediate thought is that to really work Ant Man has to be portrayed as a deeply flawed character, he's a genius on the level of Tony Stark or Reed Richard, but even more arrogant, and who wound up beating his wife and then seeking redemption and trying to earn back his friends for years afterwards. As odd as it sound, that's actually one of the driving forces of what turned Pym into a hero, and why he has been willing to go so far since he did things that are hard to forgive or forget that don't involve threatening the world. On some levels being more disliked that even villains like "Doctor Doom" for quite some time. Without that he's just "dude who can shrink and control bugs".
One of the big criticisms of Marvel is that they have already done away with a lot of the flaws inherent in the heroes, Tony Stark for example was never a raging alcoholic (he got drunk once for a fight scene against Rhodey). Nobody has to deal with secret identities... and yet Disney has been under fire to an extent because of how arrogant Thor and Iron Man are, I've read some stuff about "concerned parents" feeling character like Tony Stark who appeal heavily to children in their movie guises, act like jerks. Even without the wife beating, what is that going to say about Pym, when half the point of him is that he's an even bigger jerk than Iron Man.
I anticipate this might be a problem as the cinematic universe goes forward, because one of the thing that "sells" Marvel is that they tend to be a little more realistic with their characters, and as a general rule you don't have many "Paragons" among the group. The good guys have in the past been sexual perverts (even outright prostitutes like Stacy X), alcoholics, recovering dope fiends, teenage runaways (not just "Runaways" either, "Cloak & Dagger" fit this bill as well), wife beaters, racists (The Black Panther and his people have this in spades if understated, hating to ask for outside help, and if you remember the comments when Wakanda gave Falcon his battlesuit right before Civil War it wasn't exactly enlightened) and murderous deranged war veterans (The Punisher). Heck, Emma Frost used to manage a sex club that existed to subvert the upper levels of society... and she wasn't exactly portrayed as being chaste in doing it. This is counter to DC where they have more in the way of "flawless" moral paragon characters, or did pre-reboot (Superman, Captain Marvel, even Batman holds himself to a fairly high standard of moral conduct despite being a vigilante) which seems to define a lot of what people think super-heroes are supposed to be like. As a result I expect that we'll see more "sanitizing" of existing characters, and some that are really hard to do at all without their flaws might be overlooked entirely. Especially given the relative failure of doing things like "The Punisher" while trying to make him a bit more... reasonable... for the audience in the past. On some levels I'm kind of surprised they ever green lit an Ant Man movie to begin with, and I suspect half the problem is they are already getting some comments about the Avengers not being "perfect" so bringing in a really flawed character (even if the wife beating was played down) would be hard. Ant Man is a guy your supposed to be able to cheer for, and really hate, at the same time. He kind of demonstrates that "good and evil" don't always go entirely one way, and what's more he actually does have something to redeem himself for, and it's the kind of thing real people grapple with, and isn't any easier to be forgiven for as a super hero than it is in real life.
