The Big Picture · Interview
July 6, 2018/ 30 min/ Sean Fennessey
Sean Fennessey talks to Peyton Reed the week 'Ant-Man and the Wasp' opens: pitching the sequel as an Elmore Leonard crime story, giving the Wasp her own suit, the Marvel visual-effects machine, and why the older cast and the quantum realm both got more room.
11 films across 1 segment.
AI-generated This episode was transcribed and analyzed with AI models. The matches aren't perfect — expect the occasional misheard title or a link to the wrong film.
In conversation
The sequel he pitched as 'if Elmore Leonard wrote a science-fiction novel and they made a Marvel movie out of it': a search-and-rescue for Janet with a simple goal and constant complications, set over 36 hours of Scott Lang's house arrest. Marvel's 20th film and, he argues, its first with a woman's name in the title; he was set on giving Evangeline Lilly's Wasp her own suit and more of the Michael Douglas / Michelle Pfeiffer generational story.
The first film, a heist movie and, he says, a massive learning curve on Marvel's visual-effects pipeline; it cleared $500 million after being pegged as a possible bomb.
His first feature, a $10 million cheerleader comedy that became unlikely IP with sequels and a Broadway show he had no hand in.
Cited among the 'well-liked but cultish' comedies that preceded his move to Marvel.
The biggest tonal reference for the sequel: a simple goal, endless complications, forward momentum, a fixed clock. Screened for the producers and writers before shooting.
Another crime-comedy touchstone he screened for the team: one night of escalating trouble.
Screened for its San Francisco chase and the chemistry between its leads.
Held up as proof of the MCU letting a distinct filmmaker run: Taika Waititi pumping 'fresh blood' into the whole thing.
The Waititi film Reed loves; named alongside 'There Will Be Blood' when asked for the last great thing he'd seen.
His answer to the show's closing question and his favorite film ever: 'the perfect tonal distillation of America' and, he argues, the greatest film of the 21st century so far.
The original he loved as a kid; he invokes the five-film run's shrinking budgets as the cautionary template for a franchise past its peak.
Also mentioned raised along the way
In passing Avengers: Infinity WarCaptain America: Civil WarCaptain America: The Winter SoldierGuardians of the GalaxyDoctor StrangeStar Wars: The Last JediBattle for the Planet of the Apes