Michael Douglas wishes Marvel would just kill his Ant-Man character already
Douglas, who stars as Benjamin Franklin on Apple TV+, can see the very tiny writing on the wall
Screenshot: Disney
Is it too much to give Michael Douglas what he wants? Early last year, he appeared in the much-derided Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania. Though one of the year’s highest-grossing movies, Quantumania acted like a canary in the coal mine for a flailing MCU. The film somehow crossed the superhero movie Rubicon, pushing the color brown to the limit and bringing to light the horrid working conditions of VFX artists in Disney-contracted special effects houses. It’s probably one of the reasons Hank Pym is embracing the sweet release of death.
While promoting Apple TV+’s Franklin (presumably the launching pad for the American Cinematic Universe) on The View, Douglas returned to an idea that’s been gnawing at him since Ant-Man And The Wasp: He wants his character dead. Douglas says that he actually suggested killing Pym off in Quantumania, but, you know, with a whole Kang Dynasty to set up and Corey Stoll’s M.O.D.O.K. to introduce, there wasn’t enough time for some “fantastic way” for Hank Pym to meet his maker. Perhaps it’s because Douglas wanted to use “all these great special effects” for his death scene that scared off the filmmakers.
The post-production process on Quantumania was reportedly a disaster. Special effects artists accused Marvel of “pixel-fucking” artists, forcing them to make significant changes to the film without budgeting for the increase in work. Artists worked 80-hour weeks to fix swaths of the film that Marvel wanted changed as staffers were moved to Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, which had taken priority. Still, Douglas wanted to “use all those effects” to kill Hank Pym, and now he isn’t sure if he’s showing for a fourth Ant-Man—not that anyone’s clamoring for one.
Douglas has been requesting that Kevin Feige allow Pym to shuffle off this mortal coil for two movies. While on the red carpet for Quantumania, he told The Hollywood Reporter that he’d return for a fourth movie “as long as I can die.” For his sake, we hope Feige greenlights a six-episode Disney+ series called Pym Particle Poisoning that grants Douglas his wish.