Ant-Man and the Wasp featured the MCU debut of the classic comic book character Bill Foster, who fans of Marvel’s size-changing heroes will know as Goliath. (He has also gone by Black Goliath, as well as Giant-Man.)
Foster is a key player in the film, and while his time as a size-changer working with Hank Pym is discussed briefly, we never actually got to see him suit up as Goliath. However, according to an interview with Ant-Man and the Wasp’s director Peyton Reed on the Empire Film Podcast, we very nearly did.
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“At one point we were going to have one brief flashback with young Hank Pym and young Bill Foster where he reaches his 21 feet in trying to grow,” Reed explained. “And it just felt, narratively, it just was too much of a left turn. As much as we felt like it might get a big cheer from a small percentage of Marvel Comics fans, it just was too far a reach. But who knows for the future.”
This flashback, of course, would have directly tied to a conversation between Foster and Scott Lang early in the film, in which they compare what the maximum height they’ve reached using Pym’s growing technology was.
Laurence Fishburne has stated he is open to reprising his role as Bill Foster in the future, but he also appears to have been happy with what he did get to bring to the table in Ant-Man and the Wasp. “If it happens, if I get to suit up, great. If I don’t get to suit up, at least I’m in the MCU,” Fishburn said.
Fishburn also explained that, despite the fact that he was a massive comic book fan growing up, he was not especially familiar with Goliath, Ant-Man and company.
“I was not familiar with Bill Foster, ’cause I wasn’t an Ant-Man reader,” Fishburne explained. “I was into Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, Iron Man, Thor, Avengers, Hulk, Iron Fist; I was in that world. Ant-Man, I never really got to, but Bill Foster’s a cool character.”
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With that in mind, it’s understandable why Fishburne was so excited to be apart of the MCU but was not overly concerned with whether or not he got to don his character’s superhero garb.
In theaters now, director Peyton Reed’s Ant-Man and The Wasp stars Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Bobby Cannavale, Michael Peña, Tip “T.I.” Harris, Judy Greer, David Dastmalchian, Michael Douglas, Michelle Pfeiffer, Laurence Fishburne, Hannah John-Kamen, Randall Park, and Walton Goggins.
Via ComicBook.com