Paul Rudd says his latest Marvel film ‘may be the end of Ant-Man’

Published

3 years ago

February 17, 2023

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Paul Rudd says he has no idea if this Marvel film will be his last.

The third in the Ant-Man series, following 2015’s Ant-Man and 2018’s Ant-Man And The Wasp, it’s the first of the films he hasn’t also co-written.

“Maybe it is the end of Ant-Man,” Rudd told Sky News.

“I don’t really know. As far as what’s next, the only thing I can say for sure is that the Kang the Conqueror is going to be a very big part of whatever it is.”

The film’s director, Payton Reed, has previously referred to the film as the end of the Ant-Man trilogy.

But with 31 films in the ever-growing Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and counting, it’s not necessarily reason to believe Scott Lang’s time is at an end.

Being part of the Marvel films isn’t something Rudd has taken lightly: “They feel huge working on them because, you know, they are. And I think that [Marvel] have a way of making films that are different from other studios… Everyone who works at Marvel trusts in the machine a little bit. They’re good at making the things that they make.”

A big part of that, he says, is down to the people who work on the business-side of the enterprise, including the president of Marvel Studios.

Rudd’s unlikely comic book past

“Kevin Feige and some of the producers, they know what it is that they want to see because they’re comic book fans, they are Marvel fans. They’ve grown up reading the comics. They are fanboys and fangirls. And so, they really, I think, care about the product.”

But despite Rudd’s loyalty to the franchise, he wasn’t always so attentive.

Supplied by an English uncle (Rudd’s parents both hailed from London), the actor admits: “I read the Beano and Dandy more than I read any Marvel Comics, that’s for sure.”

Veteran stars return

Michael Douglas, who plays Dr Hank Pym – the character who invented Pym Particles, allowing Ant-Man to reduce and increase in size – is also a long-time member of the cast.

He says being back in the Marvel family is “like wearing an old coat”.

“It’s like the old film days, when actors did movies together all the time. It’s just comfortable.”

Much of his screen time is spent with fellow screen legend Michelle Pfeiffer, 64, who pays his wife Janet.

And far from being put off by all the technology involved in modern-day superhero films, the 78-year-old star says it was the tech that first lured him into the franchise.

“I’d never done a green screen before, which is one of the reasons why I wanted to do it, to see how it all works.”

But he admits that along with the highlights of Marvel come responsibilities: “Once you’re onboard, there is such secrecy about the whole process… You don’t see a script until maybe a couple of weeks before the picture starts, and then you don’t have much input.”

He also says it’s different to other films thanks to its source material – the “very strict Bible” of the Marvel comics.

‘You’re actually in the Quantum Realm’

Filmed at Pinewood Studios in the UK, the production had a whopping eight stages and 48 sets. And thanks to an excess of action and VFX, it’s a job that tends to demand more technical than emotional acting from its stars.

Kathryn Newton, who plays Ant-Man’s daughter, Cassie Lang, told Sky News: “It’s very much like you’re standing on your mark. OK, now you have to cry. And that is. That is hard.”

Evangelina Lilly, the Canadian actress behind Hope Van Dyne and describes one of the more technical stages – dubbed “The Volume” – as “overwhelming”.

She explained: “Instead of a green screen stage, The Volume is a stage that has thousands of small LED screens that cover the walls and the ceiling, and they project on to it. Everything you’re actually seeing in the Quantum Realm.

“So, the quantum landscape is all around you. And when they change the camera’s angle, it changes the landscape so that you see something different. It’s immersive. You’re actually in it. You’re in the Quantum Realm.”

Unlike the first two Ant-Man movies, which were set in San Francisco, this film is based almost entirely in the Quantum Realm – an alternative universe hidden within the multiverse, where time follows its own rules.

A place so-far unique to the Ant-Man films, director Payton Reed says it’s a location he was keen to explore: “It’s not outer space from Guardians Of The Galaxy or Asgard from the Thor movies. It’s a subatomic world.”

Partly inspired by electron microscope photography, he admits he genned up on Quantum Theory For Dummies ahead of his first Ant-Man film, exploring things like quantum entanglement in the last film, and Schrodinger’s cat in this one.

Plus, he describes the “balancing act” of being at the helm of one of the franchise’s many productions: “It has to sort of somehow fit into this larger architecture of this grand MCU story that’s being told but not be smothered by that.

“The way it tends to work is we make decisions and come up with ideas for our movie and all the movies and things that come after us have to deal with the ramifications. And of course, we inherit things too.”

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Indeed, this film kicks off Phase Five of the MCU, with two more films are scheduled this year alone – the third instalment of Guardians Of The Galaxy in May and The Marvels in July.

And as Rudd confirms, there’s one character who is guaranteed a return – time-travelling terrorist Kang. The villain, who has killed the Avengers so many times across different timelines he literally can’t keep track, is played by Lovecraft Country star Jonathan Majors.

In a universe with endless possibilities, alternate realities and super-charged powers, Kang’s oppressive presence is one sure-fire certainty in Marvel movies over the next few years.

Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania is in cinemas now.

Entertainment

Meghan reveals who said ‘I love you’ first with Harry – and what she misses about the UK

Published

8 hours ago

August 26, 2025

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Meghan reveals who said 'I love you' first with Harry - and what she misses about the UK

The second season of the Duchess of Sussex’s lifestyle show With Love, Meghan, has been released.

Over the eight-episode series, which features celebrity guests including US model and TV personality Chrissy Teigen and Queer Eye’s Tan France, Meghan opens up about what she misses most about the UK, the meal she cooked on the night Prince Harry proposed, and who said “I love you” first.

Despite Harry not making a cameo in the Netflix show, Meghan does give some insight into her life in California with the prince, and their two children, Archie and Lilibet.

In one episode, she says it was Harry who first said he loved her, and that she fell in love with him while camping in Botswana, on the pair’s third date.

“We met in Bostwana and we camped for five days together,” she says, adding: “You really get to know someone when you are in a little tent.”

Later, Meghan reveals she tried to make a roast chicken on the night Harry proposed in 2017, but it didn’t turn out how she expected.

“I will say when I made a roast chicken for my now-husband I was still having a lot of challenges with the conversion of celsius and fahrenheit. I made a horrible chicken that night. I mean, truly terrible,” she says.

After first getting married, Meghan had planned to apply for British citizenship. But the pair later moved to the US after stepping down from their roles as working royals.

In episode three, with British fashion designer Tan France, Meghan admits one of the things she “misses the most” about the UK, after leaving five years ago.

She says: “Honestly, one of the things I miss the most about the UK is the radio station called Magic.”

To which France quips: “Magic FM. Wow! Now, sorry to say this to you publicly, but that’s such a grandma station.”

A laughing Meghan replies: “I’ll be that grandma.”

During a moment where the pair are crafting aprons for their children, Meghan says she “always wanted to be a mum”, which is now “better than she expected” after the birth of Archie, in 2019, and Lilibet – who they call Lili for short – in 2021.

Sympathising with France, who explained he gets heartbroken if away from his two young children for more than a couple of days, the duchess says the longest she and Harry have ever been without seeing their children is almost three weeks.

“I was… not well,” Meghan says about the separation.

In Harry’s 2023 memoir, Spare, he wrote of the “difficult days” after Queen Elizabeth’s death and how he and Meghan were separated from Archie and Lili for “longer than we’d ever been”.

He said when they reunited at their home in Montecito, “for days and days we couldn’t stop hugging the children, couldn’t let them out of our sight”.

The premiere of the second season of With Love, Meghan comes two weeks after Harry and Meghan announced a watered-down deal with the streaming giant Netflix.

They have signed a “multi-year, first-look deal for film and television projects”, in contrast to their reported $100m (£74m) contract five years ago.

Entertainment

Lil Nas X pleads not guilty after being charged with assaulting police officer

Published

15 hours ago

August 26, 2025

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Lil Nas X pleads not guilty after being charged with assaulting police officer

US rapper Lil Nas X has pleaded not guilty after being charged with assaulting a police officer while walking in downtown Los Angeles in his underwear.

The musician, real name Montero Lamar Hill, was taken to hospital and arrested after police responded to reports of a naked man shortly before 6am on Thursday.

The district attorney’s office said on Monday that Lil Nas X faces three counts of battery with injury on a police officer and one count of resisting an executive officer.

He was being held on a $75,000 (£55,457) bail, conditional on attending drug treatment. It is not immediately clear whether he had posted it and been released yet.

He is set to return to court on 15 September for his next pre-trial hearing.

During the hearing on Monday, Hill’s lawyer Christy O’Connor told the judge he had led a “remarkable” life, adding: “Assuming the allegations here are true, this is an absolute aberration in this person’s life.

“Nothing like this has ever happened to him.”

A law enforcement source told Sky’s US partner network, NBC News, on Thursday that the Old Town Road and Industry Baby hitmaker punched an officer twice in the face during the encounter.

The source added officers were unsure whether he was on any substances or in mental distress.

NBC News cited TMZ footage where Hill was seen walking down the middle of Ventura Boulevard at 4am on Thursday in a pair of white briefs and cowboy boots.

In the videos, Hill tells a driver to “come to the party” in one clip and in another tells the person: “Didn’t I tell you to put the phone down?”

“Uh oh, someone’s going to have to pay for that,” Hill says as he continues to walk away.

In some clips, Hill struts as if he’s on a catwalk, posing for onlookers, and at one point he places an orange traffic cone on his head.

Entertainment

Bands pull out from festival after group ‘cut off’ over Palestine flag

Published

2 days ago

August 24, 2025

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Bands pull out from festival after group 'cut off' over Palestine flag

Several bands have pulled out from the Victorious music festival just hours before their scheduled performances, following claims by Irish folk group The Mary Wallopers that they were “cut off” for displaying a Palestinian flag.

The Last Dinner Party, Cliffords, and The Academic announced on Saturday that they would no longer be performing at the annual music festival in Portsmouth following Friday’s incident.

The organisers, who said the band’s set was cut short for using a “discriminatory” chant, have since apologised and promised to make “a substantial donation to humanitarian relief efforts for the Palestinian people”.

Rock band The Last Dinner Party said they are “outraged” by the incident and would boycott the festival.

“We are outraged by the decision made to silence The Mary Wallopers yesterday at Victorious. As a band we cannot cosign political censorship and will therefore be boycotting the festival today,” they said in a statement shared on their Instagram page.

“As Gazans are deliberately plunged into catastrophic famine after two years of escalating violence, it is urgent and obvious that artists use their platform to draw attention to the cause.

“To see an attempt to direct attention away from the genocide in order to maintain an apolitical image is immensely disappointing.”

The Last Dinner Party said that throughout the summer, they have used their performances to encourage their audiences to make donations to a medical charity supporting Palestinians and urged their fans “more than ever to do the same”.

The band said they are “devastated to be put in this position” and apologised to those who were hoping to see them perform.

Following The Mary Wallopers’ set, a spokesperson for Victorious said: “We spoke to the artist before the performance regarding the festival’s long-standing policy of not allowing flags of any kind at the event, but that we respect their right to express their views during the show.

“Although a flag was displayed on stage contrary to our policy, and this was raised with the artist’s crew, the show was not ended at this point, and it was the artist’s decision to stop the song.”

The Mary Wallopers claimed the festival had released a “misleading statement to the press claiming they cut our sound because of a discriminatory chant, and not the band’s call to Free Palestine”.

The band said their video “clearly shows a Victorious crew member coming on stage, interfering with our show, removing the flag from the stage and then the sound being cut following a chant of ‘Free Palestine'”.

“The same crew member is later heard in the video saying ‘you aren’t playing until the flag is removed’,” the band added.

Rock band The Academic have also pulled out of the festival, saying they could not “in good conscience” perform at “a festival that silences free speech”, while Irish band Cliffords said they “refuse to play if we are to be censored for showing our support to the people of Palestine”.

After the bands’ announcements that they were pulling out of the festival, the organisers released another statement, saying that they did not handle “the explanation of our policies sensitively or far enough in advance to allow a sensible conclusion to be reached”, and issued an apology.