Disney will release Marvel Studios’ “Ant-Man” on July 31, 2015, rather than the previously scheduled Nov. 6, 2015.

The studio gave no reason for the move, but the new date gets Marvel’s next potential franchise away from the next James Bond adventure which it would have competed with on the same weekend in the fall but into the heated summer season.

Disney also has Marvel’s sequel “The Avengers: Age of Ultron” scheduled to bow May 1, to kick off that highly competitive summer, and the fifth “Pirates of the Caribbean” installment on July 10.

Edgar Wright will direct “Ant-Man” from a script he co-wrote with Joe Cornish. They have been developing the live action pic with Marvel since 2006.

Marvel released test footage for the film at San Diego Comic-Con in 2012 (see a still from the footage below). The film has yet to be cast.

Character is a biochemist who creates a formula that enables him to change his size and communicate with and control insects. Introduction of the character in his own film is part of Marvel’s “Phase Two” of movies, which includes this fall’s “Thor: The Dark World,” next year’s “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” and “Guardians of the Galaxy.”

Also bowing July 2015 are Fox’s “Independence Day 2,” out July 3; a toon from Universal’s Illumination Entertainment, also July 3; Zack Snyder’s follow up to “Man of Steel,” on July 17; Sony’s “The Smurfs 3,” on July 24; and Fox’s adaptation of “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children,” on July 31.





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