When Ant-Man closed out Phase 2 of the MCU in 2015, the movie was a bit of a comical breather in the middle of an otherwise serious and very involved narrative, falling between Avengers: Age of Ultron and Captain America: Civil War. However, after becoming an integral part of the Avengers team, Paul Rudd’s size-changing hero and his fighting partner, Evangeline Lilly’s The Wasp, are ready for their third solo adventure, and according to Lilly, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is the best Ant-Man movie yet. With much speculation about the 2023 release currently circulating on the internet, this movie promises to be Scott Lang’s biggest challenge so far.
When taking into consideration that Scott Lang aka Ant-Man is one of the more obscure characters, the first Ant-Man movie fared quite well on its initial release. The film brought in decent enough reviews from the critics and scored a reasonable $519 million result at the box office, with the sequel, Ant-Man and the Wasp, raising the bar in both areas in 2018. While on the surface the original movie was a "take it or leave it" affair, it didn’t take long to realize this wasn’t the case, and there was actually a lot to take way from the film, and indeed to come from it in the future. Every MCU movie, and now TV series, is a piece in a larger puzzle if you take the time to look.
Thanks to the arrival of Covid, filming on the latest installment in the Ant-Man series has been a bit trickier than expected, with filming having been shut down on a couple of occasions due to outbreaks among the crew, and the general issues that Covid has brought to all movie productions. While speaking to The Digital Fix, Evangeline Lilly touched on this, saying that the film has been “the hardest one” that they have worked on, but also is going to be the best one.
“I actually think…what we did, the stuff we shot, the material we managed to get, I think it might be the best one yet,” Lilly said of the movie.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania Was Complicated to Shoot Due to Covid Lockdowns
During the interview, Lilly explained how this movie was so much different to any other that she has made in the MCU due to the additional complications brought about by Covid protocols and restrictions, including the strange “impersonal” effects of wearing masks. She said:
“We finished filming at the end of November, and I think, hands down, it was the hardest one we’ve made. It was the most difficult. It was the only one we’ve made during the Covid lockdowns. That just adds such an incredible complication to making a movie. It adds a lot of stress. It makes things very impersonal because you can’t see faces. Film sets are already impersonal enough, there is so much that goes on and so much that has to get done in a short amount of time, and the intensity level is really, really high. So it was a very trying experience doing the film with Covid measures.”
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is gearing up to be an epic addition to the MCU, with Jonathan Major’s Kang the Conqueror expected to be the main villain, but plenty of other character rumors already being discussed online around the involvement of Bill Murray and the possible inclusion of MODOK. When it comes down to it, any movie that combines the multiverse and the quantum realms is never going to be straightforward, and although there will still be that same Marvel humor, it looks like the third headlining feature for Ant-Man is going to be his most impressive yet.