I Love You, (Ant) Man: Paul Rudd Cast In Edgar Wright’s Ant Man

So Marvel made it official yesterday: Paul Rudd has been cast as the lead in Edgar Wright’s (The guy who directed The World’s End, which was, bar none, my favorite movie of 2013) movie version of Ant-Man.

When Edgar Wright came to us with the idea of Paul Rudd, we felt a huge sense of relief because the first step in creating any Marvel Studios film is finding the right star,” said Marvel’s Kevin Feige. “We knew early on that we had found the right person in Paul. When he not only agreed to do it but became as enthusiastic as any actor we’d ever met with about doing the work, we knew we’d found the right guy. We couldn’t be more excited for our audiences to see what he’s going to do to bring Ant-Man to life.

Yes. He’s enthusiastic about “the work,” Kevin. He’s certainly not considering Robert Downey, Jr.’s percentage of the gross of Avengers and envisioning finally being able to tell Judd Apatow to fuck off when he calls at 3 a.m. with an idea for a gross, yet sweet, comedy about some experience Apatow lived through at some point.

Look: I like Paul Rudd. But I can’t address whether or not he’ll be a good Ant-Man. Because we still don’t know which Ant-Man he’s gonna be playing.

Although we can probably make a guess, just based on Rudd’s casting. Nothing about Rudd screams “driven and obsessed inventor,” and the only way I could picture him laying a hand on Janet Van Dyne would be if she immediately tazered his scrotum and he flopped around, shrieking and apologizing, for at least three minutes (what can I say? Years of those Apatow comedies have ruined the guy for me. Just like years of Harold Ramis movies have made it impossible for me to picture Chevy Chase as anything but a bumbling douchebag). So I’m guessing Hank Pym – or at least a traditional portrayal of Hank Pym – is probably out.

Scott Lang is a more likely option, but only by a hair. Frankly, I don’t see Scott Lang being a character that can carry his own movie, because he is all but defined by the trials and travails of his daughter. After all, the character was introduced as a burglar who stole Pym’s Ant-Man helmet to try and cure his daughter’s congenital heart defect. And in recent years, his behavior has been motivated by his daughter being killed during The Children’s Crusade, and further, the guy was temporarily killed off (it is comics, after all) not in the heat of battle, but when Jack of Hearts blew up during Avengers: Disassembled, essentially giving his life so that Brian Michael Bendis could put Spider-Man in the Avengers like he fantasized about in junior high school. Scott Lang just isn’t a strong enough character for me to envision Wright getting all excited about adapting into a movie.

But then there’s Eric O’Grady, lead of The Irredeemable Ant-Man. O’Grady is a self-absorbed slacker (Hi, Paul!) who lucks into being Ant-Man by just coming across Pym’s suit. He uses his suit to leer and chicks and try to bang them (Hi, Paul!), and to hide from trouble when it breaks out. It is only after some time as Ant-Man that he is eventually put into a position where he can either serve his own self-interest as usual (Hi, Paul!), or act as a hero, which gives him a full heroic arc.

Considering Eric O’Grady is played far more for laughs than either of the other Ant-Men, that version seems like a no-brainer for Wright, who is, after all, a comedy director and writer. And the casting of Rudd, who is, after all, primarily a comedic actor, seems to fit best with that version of Ant-Man. And while Marvel Studios has historically been more concerned about character and story over all else in their movies, it can’t have escaped anyone’s attention that Eric O’Grady was created by Robert Kirkman. And if this is to be Marvel Studio’s first “comedy,” it probably can’t hurt to be able to slap a “Created by Robert Kirkman, creator of The Walking Dead” placard across the trailers for the flick.

Besides, if you pulled a random person off the street and asked, “Name a Marvel character who is a smarmy, self-obsessed scoundrel who in part uses his powers to attract chicks,” nine out of ten would probably say, “Iron Man,” and that’s not bad company to be in for a relatively unknown character. And Rudd can do smarmy (Anchorman 2, now in a theater near you!), so he would be a damn good match for Eric O’Grady.

Regardless, this is a Marvel flick by the guy who did my favorite movie of the last 12 months. It’s gonna be a long wait until July 31, 2015.