The opening scene in Ant-Man, Michael Douglas as Hank Pym made a decisive step to resign from the S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters. But the Michael Douglas in that scene was like how he looked in 1989 .The kind of Douglas that walks into the room in the movies Wall Street and Fatal Attraction days. .
The Ant-Man film just undid 25 years from Michael Douglas as Hank Pym. The work was done by Trent Claus of Lola VFX, the company that de-aged Douglas for Marvel's Ant-Man.
Lola VFX is a company that specializes in visual cosmetics in the world of visual effects. The visual cosmetics of Lola can range from secret touch-ups to complete physical transformations. As Trent Claus of Lola VFX said that their company can make anyone "older, younger, thinner or fatter."
In the X-Men: The Last Stand was the first of Lola VFX to go into de-aging, however, it was on The Curious Case of Benjamin Button where Lola became suddenly and extremely popular. Lola did the aging and de-aging work of Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett's characters.
The companies Marvel and Lola has established a long business relationship since then, where Lola created skinny Chris Evans for the first Captain America film, and then Marvel brought on Lola for the production process to handle the de-aging work in Ant-Man's prologue.
Trent Claus of Lola VFX stated, "They asked for advice for what they could do when they were shooting that could aid us, which is very much appreciated," Trent Claus also said,"We put our two cents in, and they did everything we needed right from the start."
As Lola found themselves watching Wall Street to view as much of Douglas's late '80s substantial body as possible, Trent Claus stated, "It helped us a lot to have that reference," "but it made us work harder, because the audience already knew what he looked like at that age. There wasn't a whole lot of leeway." Claus also said, "What's really important is the way his face moves as he speaks, the way that the muscles in the face have changed over time, the way the skin reacts to those muscles. To sell the effect you have to look at the way [the face] looks in motion."
