Though production on Ant-Man and the Wasp is slated to begin soon, we don’t know much about the sequel so far. Paul Rudd is returning as the Ant-Man himself, Scott Lang, and he’ll be joined by Evangeline Lilly suited up as The Wasp on the big screen for the first time. Plus, Michael Douglas is returning as The Wasp’s father, former Ant-Man and scientist Hank Pym, and Michael Peña is returning as Scott’s criminal buddy Luis. Now a new cast member has entered the mix, and the character he’s playing raises some questions.
Randall Park, who can currently be seen on the ABC sitcom Fresh Off the Boat, has been cast as SHIELD agent Jimmy Woo, a character who has been part of Marvel Comics since the 1950s, getting involved with various superheroes and villains over the years. But wasn’t SHIELD completely disbanded after Captain America: The Winter Soldier?
The Tracking Board was the first to report on Randall Park joining the Ant-Man and the Wasp cast and several other trades have since confirmed the casting. Besides the returning cast members from the first film, the sequel has brought Black Mirror star Hannah John-Kamen on board in a mystery role, and we’ve been hoping that the small Marvel role that Sharon Stone teased over a year ago would be for Ant-Man and the Wasp, but we haven’t heard anything about her involvement yet.
Randall Park is a fantastic comedic actor, who stars as the patriarch of the Orlando-based Asian-American family at the center of the 1990s-set sitcom Fresh Off the Boat, a wholly underrated comedy series. You may also recognize him from his supporting turns in movies like Trainwreck or Snatched, but his most famous comedic turn on the big screen is probably as Kim Jong-Un in the controversial comedy The Interview with Seth Rogen and James Franco:
The fact that Randall Park is playing a SHIELD agent is interesting since the organization hasn’t been heard from on the big screen since Captain America: The Winter Soldier revealed they had been infiltrated and essentially taken over by Hydra. The closest we came to SHIELD making a comeback is their help in rescuing people during the attack on Sokovia in Avengers: Age of Ultron.
But just because Randall Park is playing a character who was a SHIELD agent doesn’t mean SHIELD will be up and running at full capacity again. After all, there are plenty of people who worked for SHIELD who weren’t in on the Hydra side of things, and they’ve been helping Nick Fury since then. Plus, let’s not forget that the ABC series Agents of SHIELD has still been going strong, dealing with their own problems in the wake of the events of The Winter Soldier. Will Jimmy Woo create more of a link between the TV and and film sides of the Marvel Cinematic Universe? I wouldn’t count on it, but we won’t rule it out just yet either.
As of now, we don’t know what the story for Ant-Man and the Wasp will be, but the script was written by star Paul Rudd along with Gariel Ferrari. Director Peyton Reed, who replaced Edgar Wright before production began on the first Ant-Man, will be back behind the camera for the sequel.
Here’s hoping we’ll hear more about Ant-Man and the Wasp during the Marvel Studios panel at San Diego Comic-Con in a couple weeks. Otherwise, the sequel hits theaters on July 6, 2018.
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