The latest Marvel Comics movie, Ant Man and the Wasp, features the Triumph Thruxton R rather than a Harley-Davidson as has been the custom in previous movies.
The movie, starring Paul Rudd as the Ant Man, is a sequel to Ant Man (2015) and is coming to cinemas in July.
Harley and Marvel have enjoyed a long relationship of brand placement in Hollywood movies and even produced a comic book together.
Harley’s Dark Custom models, the Street 750 and Iron 883, feature in the latest Marvel Comics film, Captain America: Civil War.
Captain America’s Harley-Davidson Street 750Harley models such as the Breakout, Street 750, Fat Boy and even the electric Livewire have also been placed in recent movies such as Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009), Terminator: Genisys (2015), Furious 6 (2013) and Marvel’s The Avengers (2012).
The relationship made a lot of sense as Harley is keen to chase the youth market.
However, product placement in movies is expensive and Harley is making cutbacks including a factory closure to satisfy shareholders after the fourth year of sliding global sales.
The void has been filled by Triumph Motorcycles which posted a 22% increase in revenue and 12.7% increase in sales in the 2016/17 financial year.
Triumph and Marvel have chosen to feature the Thruxton R in the new film.
We haven’t followed these superhero movies, so the plot seems strange:
In the aftermath of ‘Captain America: Civil War,’ Scott Lang grapples with the consequences of his choices as both a Super Hero and a father. As he struggles to re-balance his home life with his responsibilities as Ant-Man, he’s confronted by Hope van Dyne and Dr. Hank Pym with an urgent new mission. Scott must once again put on the suit and learn to fight alongside The Wasp as the team works together to uncover secrets from their past.
Directed by Peyton Reed who did the first Ant Man flick, the cast also includes Michelle Pfeiffer, Walton Goggins, Hannah John-Kamen Evangeline Lilly, Michael Douglas and Michael Peña.
The latter learnt to ride a motorcycle in the recent CHiPs movie, but we’re not sure if he rides in this one.
Dax Shepard and Michael Pena in “Chips”.