Ant-Man was a pleasant surprise for many fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe last year. After a lot of uncertainty during the production phase, it ultimately wound up being very well received and for a property nobody outside of big-time comic book fans knew much about, it did very well at the box office. That being the case, Marvel has a sequel in the works and director Peyton Reed recently opened up about Ant-Man and the Wasp.

Reed was at the Saturn Awards recently, where Ant-Man picked up a big win for Best Comic-To-Film Motion Picture. Speaking with Modern Myth Media in an interview during the awards, Reed talked quite a bit about the sequel to Ant-Man, and specifically talked a lot about how Hope Van Dyne, played by Evangaline Lilly, will factor in as The Wasp in the new movie. Here is what Reed had to say.

"It's something we're excited about. For me as a comic nerd, I always thought of Ant-Man and Wasp as a team and that's a lot of what the second movie is really about is how they work together, what their personal and professional relationships are like. To show her finally fully formed in this movie is really exciting. We really get to introduce this character into that universe. I mean we've introduced the character, but we haven't seen her with her full power set and everything, so to me she's not a supporting character in this movie. It's every bit as much her movie as it is Scott Lang's."

Lilly was in Ant-Man but never put on the costume, and the Wasp costume wasn't even revealed until the post-credit scene in the movie. Lilly did prove that she can hold her own in a fight though, and with the costume and powers it will give her, it should be pretty interesting. Reed Also addressed Paul Rudd's character Scott Lang, who is a big-time fugitive given what happened in Captain America: Civil War. Reed acknowledged that since Lang was always a fugitive, it shouldn't affect things too much, but the impact of what happened in Civil War will definitely be felt and had to be taken into account while writing Ant-Man and the Wasp.

"Well he's a fugitive in most of the first Ant-Man movie. He's just a bigger fugitive now. I think that's one of the fun things and challenges about the Marvel movies for us, for the directors and for the writers, is you do have to sort of consider what happened in the previous movies in terms of your jumping-off point for those characters. It's something we talked a lot about early on and we definitely have stuff figured out, so there will be some big leaps forward."

Reed seems to have a pretty good grip on what they are looking to do with the Ant-Man sequel, and it is probably a good thing that he has a proper amount of time to plan this time around. Reed of course had to step in at the last minute after Edgar Wright left the project over creative differences with Marvel, after having been attached to the project for years prior to exiting. Many fans, and even Marvel creatives like Joss Whedon, were very upset when Wright departed Ant-Man, but most seemed very happy with what Reed was able to accomplish, and the Saturn Award seems to speak to that.

Ant-Man made a very respectable $519 million at the worldwide box office last year, which is a bit low for a Marvel movie, but really great considering the circumstances surrounding the movie and the nature of the character and the property in general. Ant-Man also appeared in Civil War and proved that he could be a part of the larger Avengers ensemble, which is very good for the MCU moving forward. Ant-Man and the Wasp is set for release on July 6, 2018.