Ant Man changes release date to avoid Bond 24

A Jack Kirby cover featuring Ant Man

Marvel/Disney blinked.

Ant Man, one of Marvel’s oldest characters (but most obscure to the general public) will now make his movie debut on July 31, 2015, instead of Nov. 6 of that year, the same date Bond 24 is to be released in the U.S., according to a STORY in the Hollywood Reporter.

An excerpt:

With the November release date, the superhero pic would have gone up against the next Bond film, which will see the return of director Sam Mendes and star Daniel Craig. Mendes’ previous Bond film, Skyfall, was a box office behemoth, bringing in more than $1 billion worldwide. Fox’s untitled Peanuts movie also opens on that date.

The new July 2015 date only has one other film slated for release — Peregrine’s Home for Peculiars.

Marvel first published a story about scientist Henry Pym in Tales to Astonish No. 27 in 1961, when comic books still had a 10-cent cover price. At that point, the only Marvel super hero title was the Fantastic Four. Marvel brought back Pym as in Tales to Astonish No. 35 (now with a 12-cent cover price) when he became the super hero Ant Man.

The first Pym story and its sequel were illustrated by Jack Kirby, plotted by Stan Lee and scripted by Larry Lieber, Stan’s brother. Pym could shrink to the size of an ant but still retain the strength of a full-sized human. Pym later took on a number of super hero identities, including Giant Man, Goliath and Yellowjacket.

Marvel/Disney’s big super hero movie in 2015 will be The Avengers: Age of Ultron, the sequel to 2012’s Marvel’s The Avengers. Ant Man will be the first Marvel film after that project. Ant Man also will be out just two weeks after a Superman-Batman movie with Henry Cavill (currently filming The Man From U.N.C.L.E. movie) and Ben Affleck.

UPDATE (Sept. 10): The MI6 JAMES BOND FAN WEB SITE, quoting a press release, says the new Ant Man release date is July 10, 2015 (or just before the Superman-Batman movie). VARIETY says July 31 is for Ant Man while Disney has a fifth Pirates of the Carribean film slated for July 10. THE WRAP says July 15.

Earlier posts:

007’s Marvel superhero competitor in 2015

The family model (Eon) vs. the corporate model (Marvel)

Wet Nellie auctioned for less than projected

“Wet Nellie” from The Spy Who Loved Me

“Wet Nellie,” the submarine car from 1977’s The Spy Who Loved Me, was auctioned on Sept. 9 but for less than some estimates before the sale.

The car fetched 550,000 British pounds (about $863,000), according to 007 fan sites such as BOND LIFESTYLE and THE JAMES BOND DOSSIER that monitored the auction online.

While not cheap, there had been projections Wet Nellie would go for 650,000 and 950,000 pounds. Not everyone was that bullish. There were low estimates that the vehicle bring a selling price of 500,000 pounds.

The result reinforces the only rule: an object, whether it’s an old comic book or something as elaborate as Wet Nellie, is worth what somebody is willing to pay for it.

The car that was auctioned was the one that function underwater, with frogmen in wet suits piloting the craft.

UPDATE: Robert Frank of CNBC TOOK A GUESS IN A POST ON NBC.COM why the auction price came up short. Here’s an excerpt

It’s unclear why the price was soft, given the boom in collectible cars and its status as an especially famous car from the silver screen. But auction experts said that because the Lotus was not a functional car, it may not have been as attractive to buyers. Although equipped with fins and propellers, it did not have wheels.