Arnim Zola Was Supposed To Be In Marvel’s Ant-Man

Though Ant-Man wasn’t a massive hit for Marvel, it still managed to make a pretty nice sum at the box office and scored fairly well with critics. It’s got a pretty rabid fanbase, too, one that champions it as a definite success for the studio and is eagerly awaiting its sequel, Ant-Man and the Wasp. No matter where you fall in regards to Peyton Reed’s first entry into the MCU, I think we can all agree that the film, like so many Marvel efforts before it, featured a pretty underwhelming villain.

Don’t get us wrong, Corey Stoll is an excellent actor, but his character, Darren Cross/Yellowjacket was poorly written and really not given a whole lot to do. Had the studio stuck to their original plan though, we could have had another villain to help offset this, as Toby Jones was at one point set to reprise his role of Arnim Zola.

If you recall, we first saw Zola in Captain America: The First Avenger followed by an appearance in The Winter Soldier, at which point he’d uploaded his consciousness to a supercomputer. As we all know, that was destroyed at the end of the film and the villain’s fate was kind of left up in the air at that point.

As you’ll see in the gallery below, what we have here is some early concept art from Ant-Man featuring Zola in his robotic body from the comics. It’s a neat look at what could have been and while it’s unclear how exactly the character would have factored into things, it’s certainly a shame that plans for his appearance were scrapped, as Jones was enjoyable in the role.

In all likelihood, Zola would have just shown up in the first act prologue, and wouldn’t have been anything close to a main antagonist, as that was always going to be Yellowjacket’s role, but his presence would have still been welcomed, especially if he had his robotic body.

Regardless, it seems as if we’ll have to wait a little longer now to find out what Zola’s fate is. If Marvel was planning to have him show up in Ant-Man, they’re obviously not done with the character just yet. Perhaps he’ll make an appearance in Petyon Reed’s sequel then? Time will tell, but we’ll keep our fingers crossed that he’ll one day find his way into the MCU again.