The Ant-Man Cometh

So...Marvel, huh? 

Their last movie starred a talking raccoon and a semi-talking tree. You saw it. Both trailers for their next movie use the Pinocchio theme song. You'll see it. The movie after that stars Paul Rudd. It's called Ant-Man. The trailer was terrible. You'll see it.

Admit it, Marvel owns you.

Imagine I told you about a movie that starred the chubby fella from Parks and Rec, the voice of Bradley Cooper, a professional wrestler (not named The Rock,) a mono-quote piece of bark, and a green woman who used to be a blue woman. It takes place on planets you've never heard of. Oh yeah, and it has a soundtrack from, uh, the 70's? Hypothetically, how would you feel about that movie?

Now, how many times did you end up seeing it?

Honestly it would be simpler if I could just get Marvel to take monthly debits from my account. Then, at least, I wouldn't have to feel the shame when the ticket booth guy at the AMC calls me by name and doesn't check the ticket stub before pointing me towards a screen. 

I'm going to see Avengers: Age of Ultron so many times I'll have to fill out a change of address form.

And then there's Ant-Man. Like I said, Paul Rudd, funny title, bad trailer. Sure, can you break a twenty?

If not, I'll take a ticket for today and one for tomorrow too.

You will too and I'll tell you why: This is where it all comes back home. John Campea of AMC Movie Talk on Youtube (which I cannot recommend highly enough) has been asking for months, how do you make it personal again? 

(So, the Fantastic 4, huh?)

It's a great question and a huge conundrum for the comicbook movie genre. Marvel has been making a living off of planet pulverizing peril lately. The X-Men franchise is veering towards Apocalypse. Green Lantern happened. Man of Steel was one pierce-a-character's-eyeball-with-a-needle scene away from being a global torture porn movie. So, how do you reduce the body count and keep the stakes? 

A movie about fathers and daughter.

Genius. It resets the pallet. It keeps the Marvel mood. Also, demographics, man. If you're reading this, you're probably an 18-35 year old male who wears glasses. And you're sweating. And you've got a neck beard. Hey, man, I'm not judging. I'm the one writing it. But Marvel has also done surprisingly well with women in the same age-range (abs.) Boys 3-17 all believe they are Iron Man. And now you have a hero that all little girls can root for and fathers can dress up as for Halloween. And a viable excuse for women 35-50 to use, "Honey, you're so much like that Ant-Man character, maybe he'll pop up in this Thor movie..." when they really just want to see a Marvel movie (abs.)

Basically, in one movie, Marvel is putting a Blitzkrieg on most of the demographics that they don't already own. This makes me wonder if Cumberbatch will be wearing prosthetics to look geriatric for Dr. Strange. Admit it, you'd be intrigued. Maybe Micheal Keaton turns up as one of the Inhumans. 

Looks like the ticket booth guy down at the AMC has a lot of names to learn.   

ADRIAN FORT is a writer, blogger, and essayist from Kansas City, Missouri. Follow him on twitter @adriananyway. His work has appeared in Existere, decomP magazinE, The Bluest Aye, Bareback Magazine, Gadfly Online, Chrome Baby, The Eunoia Review, Linguistic Erosion, and Smashed Cat Magazine. His Master's Degree is from Lindenwood University.