Peyton Reed Says He "Metaphorically Kicked in Kevin Feige's Door" Demanding an AVENGERS-Sized ANT-MAN AND THE WASP: QUANTUMANIA
The next Marvel movie is Peyton Reed’s third Ant-Man flick, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. The first film was an introduction to the character Scott Lang (Paul Rudd), and the second was a fun adventure with a pivotal post-credits scene, but this third movie is promising to raise the stakes, taking the MCU to a whole new level.
In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, director Reed talked about how he was ready to make a meaningful Marvel movie in the same vein as one of the Avengers movies.
"People felt like, Oh, these are fun little palate cleansers after a gigantic Avengers movie. For this third one, I said, 'I don't want to be the palate cleanser anymore. I want to be the big Avengers movie.'"
When asked if Reed kicked in Marvel boss Kevin Feige's door when he decided to make this declaration, Reed said:
"I did. I metaphorically kicked in Kevin Feige's door."
Reed went on to talk about one of his favorite story aspects in the film, which is the father-daughter relationship between Scott Lang and his daughter Cassie. We have loved their dynamic through the first two films, but in this movie, the role is taken over by actress Kathryn Newton, who has aged the character a few years.
"One of the single most intriguing things that I was excited to do in this movie was progress the Scott-Cassie relationship. It's been central to all the Ant-Man movies, the big difference here being that, as a result of Endgame, Cassie is now a young woman. She has become a scientific mind in her own right. She's been going through Hank Pym's old journals and notebooks, and has really latched on to this idea of quantum science and quantum technology."
It is thanks to Cassie that our heroes spend much of the film in the Quantum Realm, the microscopic and mind-meltingly weird universe from which Pfeiffer's character was rescued in 2018's Ant-Man and the Wasp.
"In the first one, we introduced the idea of the Quantum Realm, we kind of dipped our toe into it, and then even more so in the second one. But we obviously left a lot of unanswered questions. We wanted to go in a different direction, and create an epic movie where the bulk of it takes place in the Quantum Realm. For me, it was really exciting, because the other two films take place in San Francisco, and this one, we were creating this incredibly complex subatomic world, and all the environments and ecosystems and creatures and beings that inhabit that world."
Reed went on to talk about the film’s villain, Kang the Conqueror, played by Jonathan Majors:
"I grew up a real Marvel comics nerd, and there are a handful of antagonists in the Marvel comics universe who are all-timers. Loki, obviously. Doctor Doom from the Fantastic Four. And Kang the Conqueror. In conversations with Kevin Feige and Marvel, it was like, I want to put Ant-Man and Wasp up against a really formidable villain in this movie, and so we're doing Kang the Conqueror. In the comics, Kang has dominion over time, he's a time traveler. His situation is a little bit different in this movie, which I won't spoil for you, but he's someone who, [while] we live very linear lives, from childhood to death, Kang doesn't exist that way. It struck me as interesting to take the tiniest Avengers — in some people's minds maybe the least powerful Avengers — and put them up against the most powerful force in the multiverse."
We were introduced to Kang at the end of Loki Season 1, and he definitely gave us the formidable feel. I am so stoked for this movie, as the Ant-Man movies are some of my most favorite in the MCU. I can’t wait to see where the story goes and what it will mean for the future of the MCU.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania hits theaters on February 17th.