Evangeline Lilly voices her disapproval of the delayed U.K. release of Ant-Man & The Wasp.
Here at Film ‘89 Towers we are lucky enough to be based in good old Blighty and whilst that means that we usually have to carry an umbrella with us most days, we do get the benefit of getting to see a lot of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s offerings a few days before much of the rest of the world.
However this won’t be the case with the upcoming Ant-Man sequel, Ant-Man & The Wasp. You see, there’s another British preoccupation other than complaining about the weather and that’s a game affectionately known by some as Football (or Soccer if you live pretty much anywhere else on the planet).
With the World Cup in full flow, film studios are reluctant to put out any major releases during the tournament, fearing that the televised event will hinder their box office takings and as a result U.K. fans will have to wait for the upcoming adventures of both Ant-Man & The Wasp, with the film being released here on August 3rd whilst American audiences get to see it from July 6th.
Whilst we shouldn’t really complain, what with British audiences usually getting the drop on the MCU fare before our American cousins, it does still rankle us more than a tad and it appears that one of the stars of the movie shares our pain.
Evangeline Lilly, who plays Hope van Dyne, AKA The Wasp, was quick to voice her disapproval at the prospect of delaying the film’s release in some non-US locales and believes that the delay will likely result in more people illegally streaming or downloading the film;
“Then what happens is people just pirate the movie and they see it in the worst way possible, like some sh**ty version online, instead of going to a theater. They go in the end, but I don’t like that staggering. I’m really going to get to the bottom of this for you. I’m as pi**ed off about it as you are.”
Her co-star Paul Rudd took a more pragmatic approach;
“I don’t understand. Let me see if we can maybe get the World Cup moved.”
All joking aside, this is a significant blow to U.K. film fans and that includes your faithful Film ‘89 friends and whilst we aren’t expecting any game-changing spoilers in this film (but then again you never know), the whole delay seems rather unnecessary and harks back to the dark times when U.K. movie releases often came weeks or months after their US counterparts. Do Disney and Marvel Studios really think that the World Cup will keep comic book movie fans away from cinemas? We would greatly appreciate Disney rethinking this move. They brought the US release of Avengers: Infinity War ahead by two weeks, in line with the U.K. relase so there’s no reason why they can’t do the same here.
Source: Yahoo Movies
Ant-Man & The Wasp opens in the US on July 6th and in the U.K. on August 3rd but we’re praying to the movie gods that this changes. Watch this space.