Today Disney and Marvel sent out a notice that "Ant-Man," the problematic superhero movie that lost its co-writer and director Edgar Wright earlier this summer after nearly a decade of development, has officially begun production, this time under the supervision of Peyton Reed ("The Break Up," "Bring It On"). And while usually this kind of press release isn't all that exciting, this one did reveal some new cast members, some of which point to the direction this movie will take and how it ties in with the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe."Ant-Man," which stars Paul Rudd (as new Ant-Man/petty thief Scott Lang), Michael Douglas (as original Ant-Man Hank Pym), Evangeline Lily (as Hope Van Dyne, daughter of Hank Pym), Michael Pena and Corey Stoll (as the villain, we're not sure if revealing his identity is okay at this point but they talked about it at Comic Con if you're really curious), has added a bunch of new cast members, too. Bobby Cannavale (from "Blue Jasmine" and "Boardwalk Empire") has joined the cast as a replacement for Patrick Wilson, who left the movie shortly after Wright and his co-writer Joe Cornish split, as well as the always-wonderful Judy Greer, who was last "seen" as Caesar's wife in "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes."
Somewhat more interestingly is the fact that John Slattery has joined the cast. Slattery, some of you might remember played Tony Stark's father Howard Stark in "Iron Man 2." Slattery effortlessly channeled Walt Disney and Howard Hughes in that film, and hopefully will do the same here. Apparently one of the reasons that Wright and Cornish were driven away from the project was Marvel insisting that it be connected to the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe. This is clearly one of those connections.
Oh and rapper T.I. is also now a part of the cast. We're going to go out on a limb here and hypothesize that T.I. was not a part of Edgar Wright's vision for the film.
"Ant-Man" will be out on July 17th, 2015. Meanwhile, Edgar Wright just filmed a music video for Pharrell. So that should be cool.