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‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’ Writer Explains His Take on the Quantum Realm, New Details Revealed as Tickets Go on Sale

by · January 17, 2023

Janet Van Dyne in Quantumania

Michelle Pfeiffer as Janet Van Dyne in an image from Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, released by Empire Magazine.

We are now officially one month away from the release of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, and Marvel is going for broke on it.

 

Tickets are now on sale, and plenty of content is coming through the latest issue of Empire Magazine, which has a heavy focus on Quantumania and Kang specifically. Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige already described Jonathan Majors’ character as the perfect main villain for the ongoing saga, and in a new piece published by the website, ahead of the physical release of the issue on Thursday, Feige teased why the film is perfect to kick off Phase 5:

 

“We wanted to kick off Phase Five with Ant-Man because he’d earned that position. To not simply be the back-up or the comic relief, but to take his position at the front of the podium of the MCU.”

 

Jeff Loveness, who wrote the film, added the following high-concept premise for the film:

 

“The first discussion we had was, ‘What if Ant-Man is accidentally in an Avengers movie by himself?”

 

Director Peyton Reed continued on that theme by saying:

 

“We’re not running around the streets of San Francisco anymore. We’re fighting one of the most powerful villains in Marvel history, and maybe these are the most unlikely Avengers to be the first to go up against this guy.”

 

(L-R): Kathryn Newton as Cassandra “Cassie” Lang and Paul Rudd as Scott Lang/Ant-Man in Marvel Studios’ ANT-MAN AND THE WASP: QUANTUMANIA. Photo by Jay Maidment. © 2022 MARVEL.

 

After being introduced in the first two Ant-Man films and briefly visited in Ant-Man and the Wasp, Quantumania will finally let us explore in depth the Quantum Realm, as we saw in the promos. Loveness went on to describe it as “Jodorowsky’s Dune within Marvel”, a reference to Alejandro Jodorowsky’s failed attempt to adapt Frank Herbert’s sci-fi classic novel during the 1970s — the project was deemed unfilmable due to its unforgiving ambition (it also inspired a 2013 documentary by Frank Pavich). Said Loveness about the Quantum Realm:

 

“It’s a fun place. It’s a limitless place of creation and diversity and alien life. It’s Jodorowsky’s Dune within Marvel,”

 

The Quantum Realm is a mysterious place. Kang’s trapped presence must already trigger plenty of alerts for the audience and team Lang as well, but it goes well beyond that. Michelle Pfeiffer’s Janet Van Dyne, featured in the first image of this article, knows a thing or two about it after learning to survive there for many years:

 

“She does have a very rich history with Kang, and unresolved issues. The Quantum Realm can change a person, and you can have a whole other life down there. It’s something that she hasn’t wanted to get into.”

 

According to Feige, though, even if the movie is dealing with a lot of new territory for the MCU and our main heroes, this is still an Ant-Man movie at its core, and feels like a family drama:

 

“It’s about how these five family members deal with this environment and the new reality of what their mother/grandmother has been through, and that she’s a very, very well-known, very powerful freedom fighter in the Quantum Realm. Which none of them had any idea about until they get down there.”

 

 

The film will also introduce up-and-coming actor William Jackson Harper, who after generating some buzz across town with Midsommar and The Good Place, is coming into the MCU to play the mysterious Quaz. Not a lot of details have transpired about the new character, but Empire has revealed he’s a telepath; in the picture above, we can also see Katy M. O’Brian’s Jentorra out of focus, “a freedom fighter who’s railing against injustice felt by the teeming communities living in the minuscule metropolis”.

 

Interestingly enough, Empire made sure to include a quick paragraph in their article regarding some speculation over who Quaz could really turn out to be. They lay out the possibilities of cosmic Marvel hero Quasar or even Mr. Fantastic himself. Whether or not Marvel teased there might be more about him than meets the eye, we don’t know. It’s possible the studio wants to induce some speculation about the character, or simply that Empire needed an extra paragraph to completely fill the article.

 

To celebrate the 30-day countdown to the release of the movie, Marvel has also graced us with lovely character posters. Check them out below:

 

 

A new, minute-long spot was also released to announce that tickets are on sale:

 

 

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania will be released in theaters on February 17, 2023.

 

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