Monday Morning Quarterback Part II

By BOP Staff

July 22, 2015

No worse than Aquaman, really.

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Max Braden: I think it could be argued that anyone else cast in the role would have hurt the box office (except maybe Chris Pratt) more than Paul Rudd helped, but that still makes Rudd the best fit. He's not too big a star, not too big a personality, not over the top with his acting, but is still memorable and approachable, which is probably key to the character being literally a small guy. Ant-Man is similar to Spider-Man in that regard; both are underdogs rather than the wealthy and powerful like Bruce Wayne or Tony Stark. The one other person I could see in the role is his costar from Role Models, Seann William Scott. Unfortunately, Scott's problem is that people still see him as Stifler even though he's done solid work in movies like Goon. On the directing side, I love Edgar Wright's work, but I think he has an anti-commercial edge to his style that might have hurt Ant-Man box-office wise. Ant-Man needed to have as strong a connection to The Avengers visual style as possible to have the best chance at audience reception.

Jason Barney: Paul Rudd's smile and presence definitely added to this success. He is a likable guy and using him was a neat option in a movie industry full of muscles, toughness, and action. You look at him and you could see him as your town librarian or a pre-school teacher. Casting Paul Rudd in a superhero role that was not designed to take itself seriously was part of the win for Marvel this weekend.




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Ryan Kyle: I don't think Paul Rudd was the driving factor for anybody's decision to see this movie, but I do think the trust around his name quelled down "disaster" rumors surrounding the project after Edgar Wright left for creative differences. Again, I don't think Edgar leaving the project had much of a backlash to the box office potential either. His hardcore fan base is most likely the same as the Marvel fan base who bought their tickets for this movie the minute the pre-sale started on Fandango. The only harmful result that happened to Ant-Man when Edgar Wright left the directorial chair was most likely in the film's overall quality.

David Mumpower: While I don't think Rudd's presence was the driving force behind the film's box office, he still helped the bottom line. As others have mentioned, casting the WRONG person in Ant-Man would have caused fatal repercussions to its box office. When Edgar Wright left, there was plenty of cause for concern. The one selling point Ant-Man offered was that its star, Paul Rudd, kills in likability ratings. He's not going to sell tickets on his own, but his presence is reassuring to fence-sittings. And I consider a lot of the people who watched this film on opening weekend folks who took a chance on Ant-Man rather than had a burning desire to see it. If, say, Timothy Olyphant or Kellan Lutz starred in the title, each would have been wrong for very different reasons. Rudd is right, because he has an every-man charm.


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