Michael Douglas Says Marvel ‘Wouldn’t Let Me’ Quit After Asking Studio for ‘Ant-Man’ Character to Be Killed Off

Michael Douglas reached his limit playing Hank Pym (the original Ant-Man) after two Marvel movies, but the studio refused to grant him his wish when he asked for the character to be killed off. The Oscar winner was asked during a recent “Happy Sad Confused” interview if the stories were true about him wanting to be killed off from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, to which he responded: “I would have been killed off after the second one, but they wouldn’t let me.”

Appearing on “The View” in 2024, Douglas said he asked Marvel to kill him off in the third standalone “Ant-Man” movie, “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” and even pitched an idea of how to do it that included a special effects bonanza.

“[Getting killed off] actually was my request for the third one,” Douglas said at the time. “I said I’d like to have a serious [death], with all these great special effects. There’s got to be some fantastic way where I can shrink to an ant size and explode, whatever it is. I want to use all those effects. But that was on the last one. Now, I don’t think I’m going to show up [for a fourth].”

Douglas debuted as Hank Pym in 2015’s “Ant-Man” and returned in three follow-up appearances: 2018’s “Ant-Man and the Wasp,” 2019’s “Avengers: Endgame” and 2023’s “Quantumania.”

“I said, ‘I’ve never done a green screen movie,’” Douglas said on the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast about wanting to join Marvel “I [told] all my agents, ‘I’d like to do one of these green screen movies to see what they’re like,’ you know? Because it’s amazing. It’s nothing, just a green screen and they show you the pictures of what it’s gonna look like when it’s all finished.”

“It’s hard acting, man,” he added. “It’s coming at you here, this and that, you know… We did ‘Ant-Man’ and Paul Rudd was a wonderful actor — a lovely group — but then you can’t get out of it.”

Watch Douglas’ full appearance on “Happy Sad Confused” in the video below.