On Movies: A little addition to superhero lineup

Ant-Man is upon us.

On Friday, another superhero heads to the multiplexes. A Silver Age brethren of Iron Man, Spider-Man, and Thor, Ant-Man is, um, a little different. Sure, he has the superhuman strength, the supercool costume, and the supersmart-alecky retorts of a Marvel Comics crimebuster.

But this guy is less than an inch high, and if he joined his fellow Formicidae in an invasion of your kitchen pantry, you'd grab the Raid and gun him down with the rest of the pests. How can this tiny speck possibly do battle with evil masterminds bent on world domination?

Marvel put the ant into anthropomorphize in September 1962 in Tales to Astonish No. 35, Ant-Man's first appearance. If he seems an improbable contender for box-office glory now, put on your magnifiers and look again.

Ant-Man stars Paul Rudd as a busted burglar who gets his chance at redemption when he puts on what looks like an old motorcycle suit. The film is tracking to open in the vicinity of $60 million. Even if its debut weekend doesn't hit those numbers, the Marvel Studios/Disney release is expected to fare better than Terminator Genisys, which had a franchise brand in its favor and still came up short - a lackluster $44.2 million five-day holiday weekend.

Last summer, Guardians of the Galaxy, adapted from another forgotten Marvel title (the Guardians debuted in Marvel Super-Heroes No. 18, January 1969), surprised just about everybody by opening to the tune of $94.3 million. It went on to become the third-highest-grossing film of 2014.

Ant-Man may not have quite the stature of Guardians (sequel release date, May 5, 2017). But despite some bad early press (director Edgar Wright of Shaun of the Dead fame quit over "creative differences," to be replaced by Peyton Reed of the Jim Carrey flop Yes Man), its mostly positive buzz speaks to the incredible success of the superhero genre.

It doesn't take a Jungian symbologist, a Freudian analyst, or even a Hollywood screenwriting hackinabush to figure out these movies' appeal: Ordinary men and women, often alienated, angry, or otherwise apart from the mainstream, are somehow given the ability to fly, to light things on fire, to move objects with the sheer force of will, or leap tall buildings in a single bound. It's a fantasy of might, of right, of I'll-show-you-ness. They wrap themselves in capes and breastplates, tights and hoods, slinging shields and wielding mallets and eking victory from life's losses.

To wit, three of the top 10 movies of all time are adaptations of DC or Marvel comics: The Avengers (at No. 3 on the list of worldwide grosses), this year's Avengers: Age of Ultron (No. 6), and Iron Man 3 (No. 9). If you look at the domestic grosses only, Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises make the list.

Adjusted for inflation (thanks, Box Office Mojo), 1978's Superman, starring Christopher Reeve as the undocumented immigrant from Krypton, has a box-office gross ahead of Avengers: Age of Ultron (and just two notches behind 2012's The Dark Knight Rises). The first Tim Burton-directed Batman, starring Michael Keaton as Gotham City's brooding crusader, was the biggest movie of 1989. Adjusted for inflation, its domestic grosses top $511 million.

Total the receipts from the four Reeve Superman films, from Bryan Singer's 2006 reboot and Zack Snyder's 2013 re-reboot, Man of Steel. Combine them with the daunting numbers generated from two Keaton Batmans, the respective Val Kilmer and George Clooney iterations, and then Nolan's Batman - Dark Knight trilogy with Christian Bale, and it's no wonder that come March 25, 2016, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice will be in theaters. Ben Affleck is Bruce Wayne/Batman, and Henry Cavill, from Man of Steel, returns as Clark Kent/Supey. (Hey, didn't Affleck already play Daredevil in the 2003 release of the same name? Is that even fair?)

Yes, there have been bombs along the way: Catwoman with Halle Berry, Elektra with Jennifer Garner, Supergirl with Helen Slater, Howard the Duck with a humanoid mallard.

See a trend here? Women and ducks, not so hot. Maybe that's why Scarlett Johansson, who stars as the sultry Russian martial artiste Black Widow in the Avengers franchise, has failed to get a green light for a stand-alone movie, despite the clamor of fanboys everywhere. Natasha Romanoff, quack quack.

But there is a new Wonder Woman in preproduction, slated for a 2017 release with Gal Gadot (Gisele in the Fast & Furious franchise) being fitted for her red and gold bustier. Gadot's Wonder Woman shows up, reportedly, in the DC Universe of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, too.

Kate Mara plays Sue Storm, the one with the power of invisibility, in Fantastic Four, opening Aug. 7. Another reboot, the new quartet is rounded out by Miles Teller (Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic), Michael B. Jordan (Johnny Storm/The Human Torch), and Jamie Bell (Ben Grimm/The Thing). They've signed for a sequel, too.

There was a social-media dustup last week when word got out that Sony was looking to cast Marisa Tomei as Aunt May in the studio's planned 2017 re-re-reboot of its Spider-Man franchise. (To keep the rights for Spidey from going to Disney, where most of Marvel's superhero stable reside, Sony has to keep making these webslinger adventures.) Tomei, per the Twittersphere, is "too young" and "too hot" to play Peter Parker's matronly guardian. In previous Spider-Mans, Rosemary Harris, who was 74 in 2002, and Sally Field, who was 66 in 2012, assayed May.

The week before last, Sony let news break about who would be following Tobey Maguire (Spider-Man 1, 2, and 3) and Andrew Garfield (The Amazing Spider-Man 1 and 2) in the arachnidian role. Tom Holland, the beanpole Brit of Masterpiece Theater's Wolf Hall, wowed the studio with his audition reel. The new Spider-Man is his.

Also in the works: Black Panther, Marvel's Afrocentric superhero, which Selma director Ava DuVernay was said to be mulling. (Last week she announced she wasn't doing it.) Doctor Strange, with Benedict Cumberbatch as "the mightiest magician in the cosmos," is set for a 2016 release.

There are, of course, new installments in the Captain America, Thor, X-Men, and Wolverine franchises. There's also a sequel to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles coming. And Dark Horse comics, the indie publisher with a respectable books-to-screen record (Hellboy, Sin City, Tank Girl), has The Umbrella Academy, about a dysfunctional family of superheroes, in the works.

Remember the scene in this year's Best Picture Oscar winner Birdman, when Michael Keaton's Riggan Thomson, a Hollywood actor long associated with his superhero role, sits in his dressing room with a few visiting journalists curious why he's mounting an artsy drama on Broadway?

"Are you afraid at all that people will say you're doing this play to battle the impression that you're a washed-up superhero?" one of them asks.

"No. I'm not," Riggan says. "And that's exactly why 20 years ago I refused to do Birdman 4."

At which point an English-challenged reporter from Japan perks up.

"Birdman 4???!!! You do Birdman 4???"

Who knows? Years from now, Paul Rudd could find himself in the same Serious Actor boat - dodging questions about the next superhero sequel.

Ant-Man 6? You do Ant-Man 6?

215-854-5629@Steven_Rea