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In Ant-Man, there's a scene where Luis is retelling what other characters said. Falcon is talking to a woman, asking about a new super character with "bomb moves".

The "woman" (still Luis's voice) responds:

We got a guy that jumps. A guy that swings. A guy that crawls up walls. You gotta be more specific.

Were these meant to refer to MCU characters? If so, which?

I would guess that the wall-crawler is Spider-man (because Sony's deal with Marvel for MCU usage), but don't know if that line was written pre- or post-Sony deal.

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    I always thought all the references were to Spiderman.
    – CandiedMango
    Commented Dec 10, 2015 at 4:30
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    @CandiedMango I thought so as well, but they're vague enough I thought maybe they're references to AoS or upcoming MCU movies, or even Daredevil (he jumps?).
    – user31178
    Commented Dec 10, 2015 at 4:32
  • Jumps Hulk of course, crawls up walls spider-man, *swings Daredevil
    – user70577
    Commented Aug 23, 2016 at 1:42

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There are two conflicting narratives on the subject.

On the one hand, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige told io9 that it was just meant to be a list of generic powers:

"When that was shot, that was before the whole [Spider-Man] thing had happened," explained Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige. "It really was just her listing relatively generic powers leading into Falcon saying, 'I'm looking for someone who shrinks.'

However, in an interview with Comicbook.com, posted on YouTube a few days earlier, Ant-Man director Peyton Reed said that the whole line was a deliberate nod to Spider-man:

We had lots of conversations about "are we going to deal with [the Spider-man announcement] in our movie?", "should we deal with it in our movie and, if so, how?" And we liked the idea of just dropping a little, tiny reference towards the end of the movie.

These interviews were posted within days of each other (the io9 article was published on July 20, the Comicbook.com on July 16), so it's not entirely clear which to believe.

Personally I'm not sure I buy Feige's story, since neither "swinging" or "crawling up walls" are particularly generic superhero powers. But that's only a casual fan's opinion; maybe a Marvel super-executive has a different perspective on the industry. Or maybe he's lying.

In fairness it's not impossible that both stories are true, and that the line was overdubbed later; the line could easily have been redubbed after the official announcement, or changed in the script before the shot was filmed1

1 The Spider-man announcement was made in February 2015; as of April 2015, there was still filming happening on Ant-Man

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    Hmmm, interesting. I'd have to rewatch the scene to see if you see the lady's lips moving, or if they just had Luis's record some new lines and threw them over on top of the existing shots. I wasn't watching her lips at the time.
    – user31178
    Commented Dec 10, 2015 at 4:34
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    For swinging, I also thought of Daredevil and Luke Cage for swinging. DD on his extended staff, Luke Cage swinging chains as weapons.
    – user31178
    Commented Dec 10, 2015 at 4:35
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    @CreationEdge Not impossible, but seems like reaching to me; it wouldn't be my first association, in any case. To be honest, when I heard "jumping" my mind immediately went to the Incredible Hulk cartoon from the 60s
    – Jason Baker
    Commented Dec 10, 2015 at 4:39
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    I thought of jumping Hulk, too, but for some reason felt like it was a reference to NY-based supers (not necessarily heroes, but I'm not sure on villains that'd match the description).
    – user31178
    Commented Dec 10, 2015 at 4:40
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    At least in the Daredevil show, Matt doesn’t really jump or swing all that much that I remember. Whereas Jessica Jones actually does jump.
    – Paul D. Waite
    Commented Dec 10, 2015 at 9:23

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