Scott Lang (Marvel Cinematic Universe)


Scott Lang is a character portrayed by Paul Rudd in the Marvel Cinematic Universe film franchise, based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name and known commonly by his alter ego, Ant-Man., the character is a prominent figure of the MCU, having appeared in four films from his introduction in Ant-Man up to , with references to the character or snippets of archival footage appearing in several other films. Lang will also appear in the upcoming Disney+ animated series Marvel's What If...?.

Character concept, creation, and characterization

The character of Ant-Man was originally created by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber and Jack Kirby, first appearing in Tales to Astonish #35. The persona was originally the brilliant scientist Hank Pym's superhero alias after inventing a substance that can change size. Pym decided to become a superhero after his first wife was killed by corrupt secret police agents during the Cold War. Hank discovered a chemical substance, which he called Pym Particles, that would allow the user to alter his size. He armed himself with a helmet that could control ants and would shrink down to the size of an insect to become the mystery-solving Ant-Man, solving crimes and stopping criminals. Pym shared his discovery with his new girlfriend Janet van Dyne, who became his crime-fighting partner The Wasp. The duo would become founding members of the Avengers, fighting recurring enemies including Pym's own robotic creation Ultron. Scott Lang was a thief who became Ant-Man after stealing the Ant-Man suit to save his daughter Cassandra "Cassie" Lang from a heart condition. Reforming from his life of crime, Lang soon took on a full-time career as Ant-Man with the encouragement of Hank Pym. He became an affiliate of the Fantastic Four, and later became a full-time member of the Avengers.
In the mid-2000s, Kevin Feige realized that Marvel still owned the rights to the core members of the Avengers, which included Ant-Man. Feige, a self-professed "fanboy", envisioned creating a shared universe just as creators Stan Lee and Jack Kirby had done with their comic books in the early 1960s. In 2005, Marvel received a $525 million investment from Merrill Lynch, allowing them to independently produce ten films, including Ant-Man. Edgar Wright had begun developing a live-action film based on the Marvel Comics superhero Ant-Man with Joe Cornish in 2006. However, in May 2014, Wright and Marvel Studios issued a joint statement announcing that Wright would exit the movie due to creative differences. According to Wright, he had been hired as writer-director but became unhappy when Marvel wanted to write a new script. In 2017, he said: "The most diplomatic answer is I wanted to make a Marvel movie but I don’t think they really wanted to make an Edgar Wright movie... having written all my other movies, that’s a tough thing to move forward. Suddenly becoming a director for hire on it, you’re sort of less emotionally invested and you start to wonder why you’re there, really.”
Wright was replaced by Peyton Reed as director, with Adam McKay and star Paul Rudd rewriting the screenplay. Wright and Cornish received both screenplay and story credits, with Wright also credited as executive producer. Regarding Rudd's casting, producer Kevin Feige said, "Look at that origin of the petty crook who comes into contact with a suit and does his best to make good, and then look at someone like Paul Rudd, who can do slightly unsavory things like break into people's houses and still be charming and who you root for and whose redemption you will find satisfaction in". Director Peyton Reed compared Lang to George Clooney's character Danny Ocean from Ocean's Eleven, saying, "He's a guy trying to create a new life for himself and find redemption". Rudd signed a multi-film contract with Marvel, with Feige saying it was "three -plus-plus to appear in other things".
The character's first onscreen appearance finally came in 2015, with the release of Ant-Man. The film depicts Lang as a former systems engineer at VistaCorp and petty criminal who becomes the successor to Hank Pym as Ant-Man, when Pym allows him to acquire a suit that allows him to shrink in size but increase in strength. Lang then undertakes the journey of a petty criminal becoming a hero by fighting Darren Cross / Yellowjacket.
In ', Lang is recruited to fight alongside Captain America's team of the Avengers, against Iron Man's faction of the Avengers and the Sokovia Accords. During the ensuing battle, he reveals that not only can he shrink using the Pym Particles, but he can also grow to giant-sized proportions, although doing so puts great stress on his body. Ant-Man director Peyton Reed had discussed the character and the way that the Ant-Man production had shot certain sequences with the Russo brothers, saying, "As we were doing and we were in post and they were getting ready to head out to Atlanta to do Civil War, we had a lot of conversations... It's important because there's this continuity that has to happen in this universe". On the decision to have Lang grow in size to become Giant-Man in the airport battle, Feige said, "It was just a great idea to turn the tide of the battle in a huge, shocking, unexpected way. We have a lot of ideas for , none of which are contingent upon revealing Giant-Man, so we thought this would be the fun, unbelievable unexpected way to do that". Anthony Russo added that the transformation was the continuation of Lang's character arc from Ant-Man, saying "He's just really impressed with Captain America, he just wants to deliver and he figures out a way to deliver where he might actually tear himself in half but he's willing to do it and it works". At the beginning of ', it is shown that Peter Parker shot video of the Berlin Airport fight, including a glimpse of Ant-Man in his giant form from a different angle.
Rudd next reprised his role as Ant-Man in Ant-Man and the Wasp. In April 2017, director Peyton Reed stated that Scott Lang / Ant-Man also features his other moniker of Giant-Man, first introduced in Captain America: Civil War, with a new tech-suit. Following the events at the end of Captain America: Civil War, in which Lang escapes from the Raft prison, director Peyton Reed said that "he's a fugitive in most of the first Ant-Man movie. He's just a bigger fugitive now". In the film, Lang is under house arrest for the surveillance of agent Jimmy Woo after the events of Captain America: Civil War. He is released at the hands of Hope van Dyne / Wasp, who has a relationship with him, to help Dr. Pym in creating a bridge to the quantum realm to find Janet van Dyne, and faces the criminal Sonny Burch and the villain Ava Starr / Ghost at the hands of Bill Foster. Rudd was interested in Lang being a regular person rather than "innately heroic or super", driven by his desire to be a responsible parent. In the post-credits scene, while trying to collect quantum particles from the quantum realm, he is trapped there after Janet, Hank and Hope disappear because of Thanos' actions in '.
Rudd reprised his role in '. In a key scene in the film, in which attempts to send Lang through time instead drastically change his age, Lang is portrayed by twins Bazlo and Loen LeClair as a baby, by Jackson A. Dunn at age 12, and by Lee Moore at age 89. This was Moore's final film before his death in August 2018. Markus McFeely explained that adding Lang helped with implementing time travel into the film, saying, "we had access to him in the second movie, and the fact that he was bringing a whole subset of technology that did have something to do with a different concept of time was like a birthday present".
In November 2019, it was reported a third Ant-Man film is to be helmed again by Peyton Reed with Paul Rudd expected to return as Ant-Man/Scott Lang.

Appearance

To get in shape for the role, Rudd worked with trainers and cut alcohol, fried foods, and carbohydrates out of his diet. Rudd stated that in preparation for his role, he "basically didn't eat anything for about a year... I took the Chris Pratt approach to training for an action movie. Eliminate anything fun for a year and then you can play a hero".
In , Rudd's suit "is streamlined and more high-tech" than the one seen in Ant-Man.

Fictional character biography

Taking up the mantle of Ant-Man

Scott Lang graduated from MIT with a degree in engineering, but turned to a life of crime to punish a corporation that had swindled its customers. While in prison, his wife Maggie left him with their daughter, Cassie.
Upon his release from prison, Lang moves in with his old cellmate, Luis. He visits Cassie unannounced, and is chastised by Maggie and her police-detective fiancé, Paxton, for not providing child support. Unable to hold down a job because of his criminal record, Lang agrees to join Luis' crew and commit a burglary. Following a tip, Lang breaks into a house and cracks its safe, but only finds an old motorcycle suit, which he later tries on, accidentally shrinking to the size of an insect. Terrified, he returns the suit to the house, but is arrested, and then broken out of jail by the homeowner, Hank Pym.
Pym reveals that he had previously operated as the superhero Ant-Man and had manipulated Lang through an unknowing Luis into stealing the suit as a test. Pym wants Lang to become the new Ant-Man to steal the Yellowjacket suit from Pym's former protégé, Darren Cross, who has reverse-engineered Pym's Pym particle technology. Pym and his daughter, Hope Van Dyne, train Lang to fight and to control ants. Pym reveals that Hope's mother, Janet, known as the Wasp, disappeared into a subatomic quantum realm while disabling a Soviet nuclear missile. Pym warns Lang that he could suffer a similar fate if he overrides his suit's regulator. Sent to steal a device from Avengers' headquarters, Lang briefly fights Sam Wilson.
Lang, along with his crew and a swarm of flying ants, infiltrates Pym Technologies' headquarters as Cross hosts a ceremony at the building to unveil his perfected Yellowjacket suit. Lang and Van Dyne dispatch Hydra agents at the event and detonate explosives, imploding the building. Cross dons the Yellowjacket and takes Cassie hostage to lure Lang into a fight. Lang overrides the regulator and shrinks to subatomic size to penetrate Cross' suit and sabotage it to shrink uncontrollably, killing Cross. Lang disappears into the quantum realm but manages to reverse the effects and returns to the macroscopic world. Out of gratitude for Lang's heroism, Paxton covers for Lang to keep him out of prison. Seeing that Lang survived and returned from the quantum realm, Pym wonders if his wife is alive as well. Later, Lang meets up with Luis, who tells him that Wilson is looking for him.

Assisting Steve Rogers

Lang is recruited by Wilson to help Steve Rogers, who has gone rogue in the wake of the implementation of the Sokovia Accords. Lang and the rest of Rogers' team travel to Leipzig/Halle Airport, where they are found by Tony Stark and Stark's team. During the battle between the teams, Lang becomes Giant-Man, using his suit to grow to enormous size, allowing Rogers and Bucky Barnes to escape while Lang and others allied with Rogers are captured. Lang and the others are sent to the Raft floating prison, until they are broken out by Rogers. He and Clint Barton negotiate deals with the U.S. government to turn themselves in, receiving a term of house arrest in exchange.

Returning to the role of Ant-Man

Two years later, while Lang is on house arrest due to his involvement with the violation of the Sokovia Accords, Pym and van Dyne briefly manage to open a tunnel to the quantum realm, believing Janet van Dyne might be trapped there. When he had previously visited the quantum realm, Lang had unknowingly become quantumly entangled with Janet, and now he receives an apparent message from her.
With only days left of house arrest, Lang contacts Pym about Janet despite the strained relationship they have due to Lang's actions with the Avengers. Hope and Pym kidnap Lang, leaving a decoy so as not to arouse suspicion from FBI agent Jimmy Woo. The trio work to build a stable quantum tunnel so they can take a vehicle to the quantum realm and retrieve her. They arrange to buy a part needed for the tunnel from black market dealer Sonny Burch, who has realized the potential profit that can be earned from Pym's research and double-crosses them. Hope, in the Wasp outfit, fights off Burch and his men until she is attacked by a quantumly unstable masked woman. Lang tries to help fight off this "ghost", but the woman escapes with Pym's lab, which has been shrunk to the size of a suitcase.
Pym's estranged former partner Bill Foster helps them locate the lab, where the ghost captures the trio and reveals herself to be Ava Starr. Her father Elihas, another of Pym's former partners, died along with his wife during the experiment that caused Ava's unstable state. Foster reveals that Ava is dying and in constant pain as a result of her condition, and they plan to cure her using Janet's quantum energy. Believing that this will kill Janet, Pym refuses to help them and escapes with Hope, Lang, and the lab.
Opening a stable version of the tunnel, Pym, Hope, and Lang are able to contact Janet, who gives them a precise location to find her but warns that they only have two hours before the unstable nature of the realm separates them for a century. Lang rushes home before Woo can see him violating his house arrest, but Pym and Hope are arrested by the FBI, allowing Ava to take the lab. Lang helps Pym and Hope escape custody, and they find the lab. Following a battle with both Ava and with Burch and his men, Pym and Janet return safely from the quantum realm, and Janet voluntarily gifts some of her energy to Ava to temporarily stabilize her.
Lang returns home once again, in time for a now suspicious Woo to release him at the end of his house arrest. In a mid-credits scene, Pym, Lang, Hope, and Janet plan to harvest quantum energy to help Ava remain stable. While Lang is in the quantum realm doing this, Thanos attacks Earth in Wakanda, and uses the Infinity Gauntlet to snap his fingers and eliminate half of all life in the universe, including Pym, Hope, and Janet, leaving Lang trapped in the quantum realm.

The Time Heist

Five years later, Lang escapes from the quantum realm when a rat activates the quantum tunnel equipment and releases him. He finds his daughter still alive, five years older, and travels to the Avengers compound, where he explains to Romanoff and Rogers that he experienced only five hours while trapped. Theorizing the quantum realm's nature of existing outside reality could allow it to serve as a means of time travel, the three ask Stark to help them retrieve the Stones from the past to reverse Thanos' actions in the present; Stark initially refuses to help, but later relents and works with Bruce Banner to successfully build a time machine. Banner, Lang, Rogers, and Stark travel to New York City in 2012, with Banner and Rogers retrieving the Time and Mind Stones respectively, but Stark and Lang's attempt to steal the Space Stone goes awry. Rogers and Stark send Lang back to the future while themselves traveling further into the past to obtain an earlier version of the Space Stone. Reuniting in the present, the Avengers fit the Stones into a Stark-created gauntlet, which Banner uses to resurrect all those whom Thanos disintegrated. Alerted to their actions when Nebula's cybernetic components synced up with the cybernetics of her past self when retrieving the Power Stone from 2014, past-Thanos and his warship arrive and attack the Avengers' compound. Thanos summons his army to devastate the Earth, planning to destroy and then rebuild the universe with the Stones, but an army of restored Avengers and allies arrive just as Lang again becomes Giant Man to rescue Hulk, War Machine, and Rocket Raccoon from the collapsing Avengers headquarters. Stark sacrifices his life to use the Infinity Gauntlet to disintegrate Thanos and his army, and Lang along with Pym, Hope, and Janet later attend Stark's funeral.

Differences from the comics

In the comics, Hank Pym's Ant-Man is a founding member of the Avengers, whereas in the MCU, Pym is initially distrustful of the Avengers, Stark in particular. No iteration of Ant-Man becomes involved with the Avengers in any capacity until Lang teams with Steve Rogers during the events of Captain America: Civil War, and Lang does not become an official Avenger until the events of Avengers: Endgame. Furthermore, in MCU continuity, Stark and Bruce Banner, rather than Pym, create Ultron.

Reception

The consensus of review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reads, "Led by a charming performance from Paul Rudd, Ant-Man offers Marvel thrills on an appropriately smaller scale – albeit not as smoothly as its most successful predecessors." Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter remarked, "Although the story dynamics are fundamentally silly and the family stuff, with its parallel father-daughter melodrama, is elemental button-pushing, a good cast led by a winning Paul Rudd puts the nonsense over in reasonably disarming fashion."
For Ant-Man and the Wasp, the critical consensus on Rotten Tomatoes reads, "A lighter, brighter superhero movie powered by the effortless charisma of Paul Rudd and Evangeline Lilly, Ant-Man and The Wasp offers a much-needed MCU palate cleanser." Simon Abrams of RogerEbert.com felt that the film managed to juggle its many subplots while giving Rudd's Lang some decent character development. Peter Travers, writing for Rolling Stone, gave the film 3 out of 4 stars and praised Rudd and Lilly, as did Manohla Dargis at The New York Times, who praised Rudd, and felt Lilly found "her groove" in the film, while Stephanie Zachareck, writing for Time, thought the film had reasonably fun action and stand-out moments between Rudd and Abby Ryder Fortson as daughter Cassie, but felt the focus on Lilly as a better hero than Rudd was "just checking off boxes in the name of gender equality."
Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times also praised the cast, especially Rudd and Fortson, while Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post called the film "instantly forgettable" and criticized its plot, but still found the film enjoyable, particularly praising Rudd along with the action and effects.

Accolades

YearFilmAwardCategoryResultRef.
2015Ant-ManTeen Choice AwardsChoice Summer Movie Star: Male
2016Ant-ManCritics' Choice AwardsBest Actor in an Action Movie
2016Ant-ManSaturn AwardsBest Actor
2016Ant-ManMTV Movie AwardsBest Hero
2019Ant-Man and the WaspTeen Choice AwardsChoice Action Movie Actorrowspan="2"
2019Teen Choice AwardsChoice Action Movie Actor-