MCU: 10 Things You Might Not Know About ANT-MAN AND THE WASP

Geek Dave's gonna call you ANT-onio Banderas!

1. 2018s Ant-Man And The Wasp was the first film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to have a female character in the title, with Evangeline Lilly's Wasp sharing equal billing with Paul Rudd's Ant-Man. However, this wasn't just a deliberate response to the shifting views toward equality, rather director Peyton Reed called it "organic" and noted Wasp's final line in 2015s Ant-Man, 'It's about damn time', set-up the sequel back then and Marvel Studios had confirmed the title in October 2015. Reed also said that an alternate title Wasp and the Ant-Man was briefly considered, but was not chosen due to fan expectation given the comics history of the phrase "Ant-Man and the Wasp"

2. However, that wasn't to say that sexual equality and the Me Too Movement wasn't paramount in Reed's mind during production of the 20th MCU movie...

"It's about damn time: We’re going to have a fully realized, very very complicated hero in the next movie who happens to be a woman."

Reed would face some resistance to this and had to push to ensure the Wasp received equal publicity and, especially, merchandise for the film. Not all companies initially appeared as keen as Reed, especially when it came to licensing deals for toys, but the director and Marvel's licensing department made it a condition that the two lead characters receive equal merchandise.

3. Ant-Man And The Wasp would properly introduce the character of Janet van Dyne, and back when making the first film Peyton Reed always had "definite ideas" of who should portray the character.

For the first film, Reed had cast actress Hayley Lovitt to make a nonspeaking cameo as Janet van Dyne. Reed chose her for her "saucer-like, Michelle Pfeiffer eyes", since Pfeiffer was always Peyton Reed's dream casting for the character.

Reed's dream came true and Michelle Pfeiffer was indeed cast as Janet van Dyne. Not forgetting Hayley Lovitt, though, Reed brought her back to work as a reference double for the scene when Pfeiffer was de-aged to portray the younger Janet.

4. However, Hank Pym had other ideas as to who should be his wife! That is to say Michael Douglas, who plays Hank Pym, pushed for his real life wife Catherine Zeta Jones to be cast in the sequel as Janet van Dyne.

5. Peyton Reed wasn't exactly a fan of Captain America: Civil War, specifically how the Russo brothers introduced Giant-Man to the MCU before he had the chance to do so in an actual Ant-Man movie, as it had always been his intention for Giant-Man to appear in a sequel.

The decision for Giant-Man to make an earlier appearance was out of Reed's control but when it came to plotting out the sequel, his frustration surrounding the introduction helped provide character development opportunities for Ant-Man And The Wasp. Reed noted that Hank Pym is...

"...very clear in the first movie about how he feels about Stark and how he feels about The Avengers and being very protective of this technology that he has"

...and so Reed channeled his feelings through Pym's initially "pissed" character, and by extension felt that Hope would feel betrayed, and so he found an "in" for those characters' starting dynamics.

6. Paul Rudd actually did learn some close-up magic for Ant-Man And The Wasp, explaining on a U.S. chat show...

"I really did learn some of the magic. I haven't really kept it up. But then again, trying to learn to be really good at magic in a short amount of time is like trying to learn violin in a short amount of time."

7. The lab and quantum tunnel set seen in Ant-Man And The Wasp was inspired by the 1966 television series The Time Tunnel, and was the largest physical set built for an MCU film. In the DVD commentary for the film, Peyton Reed jokes that the smallest character having the largest set is "a little counter-intuitive".

8. Laurence Fishburne joined the cast as Bill Foster, and old acquaintance of Hank Pym, and like the other senior characters was de-aged to portray his younger self. Langston Fishburne, Laurence's son, acted as a reference double for these scenes.

9. Although the character of Ghost (played in Ant-Man And The Wasp by Hannah John-Kamen) is a villain taken from Marvel comic books, she's not an adversary of Ant-Man. Primarily appearing an an antagonist against Iron Man she is also not a she in the pages of the comics, rather a male villain, but the gender-swapping of the character was introduced here a way to continue the theme of fathers and daughters - as in Hank & Hope and Bill & Ava.

10. Although Ant-Man And The Wasp was always intended to be "a fairly stand-alone movie" and a sort of "palette cleanser" after the events of Avengers: Infinity War, the production could not ignore the events that happened in the previous MCU film.

Ant-Man And The Wasp takes place over a 48 hour period but the timeline in relation to Infinity War was "left purposefully ambiguous". Given the mid-credits scene and the dynamic between the characters before the effects of Thanos' snap are felt, it's most likely that the majority of Ant-Man And The Wasp takes place weeks, if not months, before Infinity War.

Reed revealed that there had been discussions with Marvel Studios and the Russo brothers of including...

"...little Easter eggs along the way, to start to reveal to the audience where the movie takes place in the timeline..."

...as if it was running concurrently with Avengers: Infinity War, leading up the the mid-credits scene. Eventually it was Reed who nixed this as he "felt [it was] not very fun to us and kind of obvious."

Reed also liked how the film ends with closure and on a positive note...

"...and then to BANG — give the audience a gut punch right after the main credits."

I'm pretty sure there he was referring to the sequence showing Hank Pym, Janet van Dyne, and Hope van Dyne disintegrating due to the events of Avengers: Infinity War and not this...