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Paul Rudd discusses Ant-Man's appearance in upcoming “Avengers” films: 'They have my number'


Don’t ask Paul Rudd if we’ll see him in the next Avengers movie, which will be directed by the Russo brothers, Anthony and Joe.

“As far as the Russos, they have my number,” Rudd recently said when asked by Collider about rumors Ant-Man would appear in Avengers: Doomsday.They know where I’m at, and that’s all I can say.”

Rudd went on to joke with his Death of a Unicorn costar Jenna Ortega, “I don’t really know how to play these things…. I blink, can I send messages?” Rudd began to make wild facial gestures and hand movements, making light of the strenuous confidentiality that Marvel expects of its stars around upcoming projects. “Morse code, some Johnny Got His Gun. I’ll tap out things with my head.”

With Avengers: Doomsday scheduled to begin production in the U.K. within weeks, Rudd was asked if he had plans to travel to London soon.

“Isn’t everyone traveling to London soon now in this business?” he slyly replied.

Rudd has starred in four Marvel films as the titular Ant-Man, the thief turned shape-shifting micro-supe known to his friends as Scott Lang. Beginning with the 2015 origin story, known simply as Ant-Man (which Rudd also co-wrote with an Avengers-worthy team of screenwriter stars, including Joe Cornish, Edgar Wright, and Adam Mckay), the franchise has spawned two sequels and sprung Rudd into 2019’s Avengers: Endgame.

Ant-Man and the Wasp, costarring Evangeline Lilly, and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, which added Bill Murray and Jonathan Majors, followed in 2018 and 2023, respectively.

Paul Rudd in 2024.

Joe Maher/Getty


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Starring in a Marvel film doesn’t guarantee you a spot on the Avengers’ roster. Though Rudd has only appeared in one Avengers film (while being eligible but overlooked for 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War as well), some Marvel stars have played prominent roles in the MCU and its corollary TV franchise and haven’t ever joined the team on screen.

The most notable absences from the Avengers films have been Daredevil and his notable associates like Elektra. The main reason the masked vigilante, notably portrayed by Ben Affleck and Charlie Cox, hasn’t joined the team comes from the comics, in which the character is often depicted as reluctant to join any team. But Cox, whose Daredevil: Born Again revival series is now streaming on Disney+, has shown up in film Spider-Man: No Way Home (starring Tom Holland as Peter Parker, who moonlights as an Avenger) and Marvel series She-Hulk: Attorney at Law.

The X-Men also haven’t spent much time in Avenger films. Though the Avengers and X-Men are two distinct teams within expanded Marvel lore, several core members of the latter team, like Storm, have worked for the former. Intellectual property rights have kept the teams apart, given Fox held the exclusive rights to the X-Men characters (portrayed variously by stars like Halle Berry, Hugh Jackman, and Jennifer Lawrence) until 2022, which saw Patrick Stewart‘s Professor X appearing in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.

Rudd has been busy since his last engagement with the Avengers, appearing in MCU film Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, two Ghostbusters films, the Andrew DeYoung comedy Friendship, and the TV series Rudd called the “Mount Rushmore” of comedy, Only Murders in the Building.

“Surreal doesn’t even cover it,” he told Entertainment Weekly in 2023. “For a comedy fan like myself, Martin Short and Steve Martin, that’s Mount Rushmore. I mean, truly hero worship. To get to work with them, I still kind of can’t believe it.”


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