Ant-Man Fans Erupt After News Of This Recasting
The Marvel Cinematic Universe is a moving target. For all the ways in which Kevin Feige has made the entire operation as streamlined and consistent as possible, there will always be ways in which the applecart is upset, if not overturned entirely. The Incredible Hulk is largely forgotten from canon, Terrence Howard was replaced with Don Cheadle in the role of Rhodey after Iron Man, and Ant-Man's original director, Edgar Wright, who spent years working to make sure that character got his own big-budget movie, was booted from his passion project and replaced with Peyton Reed. No matter how many years pass, there will always be unexpected changes that leave fans scratching their heads, and while most fans rightly assumed there would be a third Ant-Man movie, what they didn't anticipate was that a key character would be recast.
We know that the third Ant-Man movie is entitled Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania. We know that both Paul Rudd and Evangeline Lilly are reprising their roles as Scott Lang and Hope Van Dyne. We also knew that veteran actors Michael Douglas and Michelle Pfeiffer are returning as Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne. So naturally we all assumed that Scott Lang's daughter Cassie Lang would still be played by Avengers: Endgame actor Emma Fuhrmann.
However, we recently discovered that Cassie Lang has been recast with an (arguably) more well known actor — and, boy howdy, do fans ever have some strong opinions about that news!
Fuhrmann is out and Newton is in as Cassie Lang
Emma Fuhrmann is out as Cassie Lang and, in her stead, the role will be played by Freaky star Kathryn Newton. We don't know why the casting change happened, nor do we know what the change will mean for the Ant-Man franchise or for Cassie Lang specifically. Fuhrmann has not gone on record about the recast other than by removing "Cassie Lang" from her Instagram bio. Newton posted the news to Instagram writing, "Last night I dreamed of being a superhero."
Fans of Ant-Man are passionate and conflicted about the news. Twitter user @JessePupp writes, "Emma Fuhrmann was great in the role as Cassie, it bothers me how unknown/lesser actor/actress keep getting replaced by up and coming actors/actress's. Its almost like they made her role in endgame pointless."
While Fuhrmann was effectively only in one scene, many fans feel a connection because of the emotional intensity of the moment when Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) returns from the Quantum Realm to find he's lost years of time and that his daughter has grown up without him in a world ravaged by Thanos. Writes @francescaaahhhh, "wait wait this actress Emma Fuhrmann gave us the best scene of Endgame and they RECASTED HER IN ANT MAN 3???? cold."
People are, of course excited about Newton in the role (more on that in a moment), but it's probably @Themiscyra who said it best when they wrote, "I've been very impressed by Kathryn Newton in everything I've seen her in and she does look more like Cassie Lang from the comics. I do feel bad for Emma Fuhrmann. Kind of sucks to originate a role and then have it taken from you."
Cassie Lang and Young Avengers
There are tons of rumors about the what, where, who, and how of the MCU's future, but one of the prevailing rumors is that we're headed toward a Young Avengers story. One of the members of that team would just so happen to be a hero named Stature, or — as we presently know her — Cassie Lang.
In the pages of Young Avengers, Cassie happens to be pals with future Hawkeye, Kate Bishop. As we know, Kate Bishop is being played by Hailee Steinfeld in the upcoming Disney+ Hawkeye series, so there's a very solid chance that the MCU will pair the two characters together in the future. What makes that information relevant to the recasting of Cassie Lang is that Kathryn Newton already has a solid track record as a physical performer. Recently, we saw her play a very violent serial killer in the body swap horror-comedy, Freaky. However, it's also worth noting that she also played Claire Novak, a hunter on the long-running CW series, Supernatural.
Actors can always train to become action stars, but it's probably not a coincidence that when Marvel recast Cassie Lang, they did so with an actor who already has action star in her DNA.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania begins filming in 2021 and is currently set to release theatrically in 2022.