When the trailer for Marvel Studios’ upcoming Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania recently debuted, fans were struck by how different it appeared than the previous two hit Ant-Man movies.
While director Peyton Reed‘s first two installments leaned heavily into the action-comedy genre, Paul Rudd‘s third standalone go-round has real end-of-the-universe stakes, thanks to Jonathan Majors‘ Kang the Conqueror.
In an exclusive cover story with the United Kingdom’s Empire, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige explains, “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.”
Reed explains, “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.”
Feige teases it won’t be easy, as Kang, who Majors brought to life in another form in Loki, can “re-write existence and shatter timelines.”
The movie once again reunites Rudd’s Scott Lang with Evangeline Lilly‘s Hope van Dyne/The Wasp, Michael Douglas as Hank Pym and Michelle Pfeiffer as his wife, Janet van Dyne. This time around, Lang and company get sucked into the Quantum Realm, where Kang tempts Scott with his powers, promising the hero more time he lost with his daughter Cassie, this time played by Kathryn Newton.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania debuts in theaters February 17 from Marvel Studios, which, like ABC News, is a subsidiary of Disney.
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