Ant-Man is ready for principle photography to begin in Atlanta on August 18. Because of its production delay, the movie has lost three actors including: Patrick Wilson, due to overlap with another upcoming production he was already signed on for, along with Matt Gerald and Kevin Weisman being written out of the updated script.
Academy Award winning actor Michael Douglas is still on board as Dr. Hank Pym and he spoke with Entertainment Weekly about his character, his daughter Hope Pym—played by Evangeline Lilly who potentially becomes an adapted movie version of the Wasp—and his significant other Janet van Dyne.
My name is Dr. Henry Pym. I’m an entomologist. I’m also a physicist and [in 1963] I discovered ... a way, a serum [a.k.a. Pym Particles], to reduce a human being to the size of an ant [while] maintaining [normal size] ... strength. Not only that, but I was able to find a way to communicate with ants. But unfortunately during this process, a tragic personal accident happened with my wife, my daughter, Evangeline, Hope. So I’ve had to pass my powers and strengths onto a mentor. Because my partner, my partner, Corey [Stoll, who is playing Darren Cross / Yellowjacket] over there, f**ked me good.
[Some paraphrasing above so it reads more concisely.]
Without saying it outright, it sounds like Janet may have passed while either giving birth to Hope or during an experiment by Pym with his shrinking Pym Particles. This is conjecture by me but something bad seems to happens to Janet in the script.
Finally, check out the above image which has Douglas at the Marvel booth at Comic-Con 2014 with an original Ant-Man helmet. Whether or not this is an actual prop for Ant-Man is unknown.
Ant-Man is set to release in theaters on July 17, 2015.