Marvel Studios Hires 'Rick And Morty' Veteran To Write 'Ant-Man 3'

Ant-Man 3 has found a writer.Jeff Loveness, who currently serves as a writer and co-producer on Adult Swim's sci-fi comedy series Rick and Morty, has been hired to write the continuing adventures of Ant-Man and the Wasp for Marvel Studios. Get more details below.

According to The Hollywood Reporter's Heat Vision blog, Marvel hired Loveness "in the early days of Hollywood's shutdown," so writing has already begun on the sequel, which will presumably reunite Paul Rudd as Scott Lang/Ant-Man, Evangeline Lilly as Hope van Dyne/The Wasp, Michael Douglas as science whiz Hank Pym, Michelle Pfeiffer as Janet van Dyne, and Michael Peña as the fast-talking Luis. I say "presumably" because even though Ant-Man and Ant-Man and the Wasp director Peyton Reed has been brought back on to direct this third movie in the franchise, the studio has yet to officially acknowledge that it's happening. But Marvel has proven time and again that they're interested in trilogies as starting points, having used that formula for characters like Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor so far (with at least one more Thor movie on the way).

Loveness has experience with a different branch of Marvel; THR says he's written comics centering such characters as Spider-Man, Groot, and Nova, among others. He's also written jokes for the Emmys and the Oscars broadcasts, was a writer on Jimmy Kimmel Live! for several years, and in addition to his Rick and Morty credits, he wrote an episode of the TBS comedy series Miracle Workers, which stars Daniel Radcliffe and Steve Buscemi.

Since Marvel has not officially announced Ant-Man 3 yet, it's tough to tell exactly what the timeline is for it getting underway. (And obviously, the coronavirus pandemic will have long-lasting effects on the entire movie industry, not just the Marvel Cinematic Universe.) Disney and Marvel shifted almost all of the upcoming MCU release dates earlier today, and it'll be very interesting to see if they end up delaying any of the Disney+ shows like The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, WandaVision, Loki, etc. because of the way those shows are supposed to tie into the larger story they're trying to tell now across multiple platforms.