How ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’ Is Different From the First 2 ‘Ant-Man’ Movies
After delays, Marvel’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is finally set to arrive in theaters Feb. 17, 2023. But even though fans of the Ant-Man movies will recognize some familiar faces, the upcoming film is apparently very different from its previous installments, 2015’s Ant-Man and 2018’s Ant-Man and the Wasp.
The ‘Ant-Man’ movies: Cast, sequel, and upcoming installment
In Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Paul Rudd will reprise his role as Scott Lang, who doubles as the size-shifting superhero Ant-Man. Evangeline Lilly also will return as Hope van Dyne, otherwise known as The Wasp.
Other cast members include Kathryn Newton as Scott’s daughter, Cassie Lang; Michael Douglas as scientist Dr. Hank Pym; and Michelle Pfeiffer as the original Wasp, Janet van Dyne.
The first Ant-Man movie tells the origin story of the titular superhero. It received positive reviews from fans, holding a 83 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Rudd’s Ant-Man also appeared in team-up movies including Captain America: Civil War (2016) and Avengers: Endgame (2019) in the following years.
Ant-Man and the Wasp picks up after the events of Civil War. The movie expands on the character of Hope, Hank and Janet’s daughter. Scott once again dons the Ant-Man suit and fights alongside The Wasp to defeat a powerful threat to the Quantum Realm. The sequel has a 87 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania stands out among other MCU projects for one big reason: its time-hopping villain, Kang the Conqueror. Disney+’s Loki series first introduced Jonathan Majors’ character. Kang will reportedly be the next major antagonist of the MCU. And he will have a significant impact on the upcoming Phase 5 and Phase 6 stories.
How ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’ is different from its predecessors, according to its director
During a panel with Entertainment Weekly at 2022’s San Diego Comic-Con, the cast and crew of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania teased some exciting details about the upcoming superhero flick. Director Peyton Reed said:
“We were thrilled to get to do a third ‘Ant-Man’ movie and do a trilogy. And we knew if we were going to do that, we wanted to do some things differently. We really wanted to take a hard left turn and make a movie that was even more epic, but still progress the story of these family dynamics and everything that’s going on between Scott and Hope and Cassie.”
Based on Reed’s remarks, it seems Ant-Man 3 will raise the stakes for Scott and Hope, who might be taking on Kang — or one of his variants. Considering Kang is an immensely powerful being, this could prove to be a difficult or even deadly mission for the two heroes.
“We wanted to put our heroes up against a very, very formidable opponent,” the director added. “… So to be able to put our heroes up against Kang the Conqueror in this movie was a huge thing for us.”
Rudd also chimed in. “We knew the scope of this thing was going to be different,” he said. “We’re going up against Kang, which adds in a whole other element.”
He continued: “There were things that we got to explore and got to relive from the first two films, but this was going to be a whole new thing.”
Other details from Marvel about ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’
Marvel did share some more details about the film’s premise at Comic-Con. As the title suggests, the movie will see Scott, Hope, Hank, and Janet returning to the Quantum Realm for another adventure, per Marvel.com.
In addition, Reed said fans should expect to see more of the father-daughter relationship play out between Scott and a now 18-year-old Cassie. Scott will apparently struggle to relate to his daughter, as he lost five years with her after being “snapped” by Thanos following the events of Avengers: Infinity War.
More grounded, family-centric storylines have been at the center of several recent Marvel projects, such as Hawkeye and Ms. Marvel. But the Ant-Man 3 storyline could be even more compelling, as fans have watched Cassie grow up. Perhaps this movie will act as a jumping-off point for Cassie to take over her dad’s superhero moniker for rumored MCU projects like Young Avengers.
While there are still a lot of unknowns, it seems like the scale of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania will be much bigger than what fans have seen in the previous two Ant-Man movies.
