Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantummania

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantummania is a 2023 American superhero film based on the Marvel Comics starring Scott Lang/Ant-Man and Hope Pym/The Wasp. Produced by Marvel Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, it is the sequel to Ant-Man (2015) and Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018) and the 31st film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). It is directed by Peyton Reed, written by Jeff Loveness, and stars Paul Rudd as Scott Lang and Hope Van Dyne as Evangeline Lilly, Jonathan Majors, Kathryn Newton, David Dastmalchian, Katy O’Brien, William Jackson Harper, Bill Murray, Michel. Pfeiffer, Corey Stoll and Michael Douglas. In the film, Lang, Van Dyne and their family are accidentally transported to the Quantum Realm and face off against Kang the Conqueror (Majors).
Plans for a third Ant-Man film were confirmed in November 2019, with Reed and Rudd returning. Loveness was hired in April 2020 with development beginning during the COVID-19 pandemic. The title and new cast members were announced in December 2020. Filming began in Turkey in early February 2021, and additional filming took place in San Francisco in mid-June. Principal photography began at the end of July at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire and finished in November.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantummania premiered at Westwood, Los Angeles, on February 6, 2023, and was released in the United States on February 17 as the first film in Phase Five of the MCU. The film received mixed reviews from critics, who praised its performances (especially Rudd, Majors, and Pfeiffer) and musical score, but criticized its plot, screenplay, and tonal departures from previous installments in the franchise, and polarizing visual effects. Despite Backlash grossing $476.1 million worldwide, it was a box-office disappointment, one of the few films in the MCU that failed to break even during its theatrical run.

Details

After the Avengers battle against Thanos, [a] Scott Lang has become a successful memoirist and lives happily with his girlfriend Hope Van Dyne. Scott’s now-teenage daughter Cassie has become a political activist, helping people displaced by the Blip, which has strained her relationship with her father.
While meeting with Hope’s parents, Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne, Cassie reveals that she is working on a device that can communicate with the Quantum Realm. Upon learning this, Janet panics and forcibly shuts down the device, but the message is received, causing a portal to open and transport the five of them to the Quantum Realm. Scott and Cassie are found by locals rebelling against their ruler, while Hope, Janet and Pym explore a sprawling city for answers.
Hope, Janet, and Pym meet Lord Creeler, a former ally of Janet’s, who reveals that everything has changed since he left, [b] and that he is now working for Kang, the new ruler of the Quantum Realm. The three are forced to escape and steal Creeler’s ship. Meanwhile Langs is told by rebel leader Gentora that Janet’s involvement with Kang is indirectly responsible for her rise to power. The rebels are soon attacked by Kang’s forces led by M.O.D.O.K., who is revealed to be Darren Cross, having survived his apparent death at the hands of Scott, [c] and who received Casey’s message earlier.
Aboard the Creeler, Janet confesses to Hope and Pym that she met Kong when he was previously in the Quantum Realm. He claimed that both he and Janet could escape the Quantum Realm if she helped him rebuild the core of his multidimensional powers. After they were able to repair it, Janet had a vision of Kang conquering and destroying the entire timeline. Kang revealed that he was exiled by his form out of fear, which caused Janet to turn against him. Incomparable, Janet uses her pym particles to enlarge the power core beyond use. Kang, regaining his powers, eventually conquers the Quantum Realm.
The Langs are taken to Kang, who demands that Scott help him get his power core back or he will kill Casey. Scott is then brought back to the original position and shrunk. In the original, he faces a potential storm, causing him to almost overwhelm himself and split into multiple copies, but Hope arrives and helps him acquire the Power Core. However, Kang revokes the contract, imprisoning Janet with M.O.D.O.K. Destroying his ship with Hank. After being rescued by his ants, who quickly evolved and became hyper-intelligent after being pulled into the quantum realm, Pym helps Scott and Hope as they make their way to Kang. Casey rescues Gentora and they start a rebellion against Kang and his army. During the fight, Cassie convinces Cross to switch sides and fight Kang, ultimately sacrificing her life with him.
Janet fixes the power core while she, Pym, Hope and Cassie jump through a portal home. Kang attacked Scott at the last minute. Before she can defeat Scott, Hope returns and she and Scott throw Kang and the Pym Particles into the power core, destroying them both. Cassie reopens the portal for Scott and Hope to return home. As Scott happily resumes his life, he begins to reconsider what he was told about Kang’s death causing something terrible to happen, but shrugs it off.
In the mid-credits scene, Kang’s numerous forms, led by Immortus, mourn Kang’s death and plan their multi-pronged rebellion. In a post-credits scene, Loki and Mobius M. at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. Mobius encounters another Kang form, Victor Timely.

Cast and characters

Paul Rudd as Scott Lang/Ant-Man:
An Avenger and former petty criminal with a suit that allows him to shrink or grow larger as he gains power. After the events of Avengers: Endgame (2019), Scott has become a well-known celebrity to the public, as well as the author of an autobiographical book titled Look Out for the Little Guy, which tells a different version of how he helped save. Universe from Thanos in Endgame.
Evangeline Lilly as Hope Van Dyne / The Wasp:
Daughter of Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne who inherited the matching suit and Wasp mantle from her mother. He serves as the head of the Pym van Dyne Foundation, which uses Pym particles for humanitarian efforts. Lilly said the film will explore how the character deals with his “fragility and his vulnerability”, similar to how Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018) showed how strong and capable he is.
Jonathan Majors as Kang the Conqueror:
A “time-traveling, multidimensional antagonist” trapped in the Quantum Realm needs Pym Particles to get his ship online and a device that allows him to travel anywhere in time. Kang is an alternate timeline variant of the character He Who Remains, the creator of the Time Variance Authority (TVA), introduced in the first season finale of Loki (2021). Loki season one head writer Michael Waldron described Kong as “the next big cross-movie villain” for the MCU, while Quantummania writer Jeff Loveness described Kang as a “top-tier, A-list Avenger villain”. Majors stated that Kang is different from He Who Remains, who is not in Quantummania, with an altered psychology, portraying Kang differently from He Who Remains because of the different characters around him and the transition from a series to a film. He was attracted to Kang’s “character and dimension” and the potential it presented him as an actor, noting that Kang would be a different type of villain in the MCU than Erik Killmonger and Thanos, as well as the possibility of acting as Iago in William Shakespeare’s tragedy Othello. A complex villain that everyone should be wary of. Loveness wanted to focus on Kang as a human being, exploring his humanity and vulnerability as a “very lonely” character before reaching “apocalyptic, Avengers-scale heights”. He compares it to Thanos without creating it entirely from computer-generated imagery, and says Kang will be “Thanos on an exponential level”. He also said that since the concept of time travel was already explored in Endgame, he had to expand his vision for Kang to focus more on the multiverse, his dimensions, and his “infinite freedom” from time and its various versions. The character will destroy it and make it their own. Loveness researched various versions of Kang from the comics, such as Rama-Tut and the Scarlet Centurion, and described him as a “tail-eating infinity snake” who was “literally a man at war with himself”. Director Peyton Reed compared the character to Alexander the Great as a reference point for Majors, who was also inspired by Genghis Khan and Julius Caesar. Majors said Kang would be the “supervillain of supervillains” and looked to contrast Tony Stark/Iron Man, whom he called the “superhero of superheroes”. Majors added 10 pounds (4.5 kg) of muscle for the role, focusing on strength and conditioning training. Reed said that Quantummania would feature a “different flavor” of the approach of the alternate version of Kang to the Majors, and explained that Kang has “dominated over time”, calling him a fighter, strategist and “all-time antagonist” compared to previous opponents. As the Ant-Man film “force of nature”, given his work over time, Kang does not live a linear life.
Majors portrayed numerous Kang forms within the Council of Kings, including Immortus, Rama-Tut, and the Centurion in the mid-credits scene, as well as Victor Timely’s form in the post-credits scene.
Kathryn Newton as Casey Lang:
Scott Lang’s 18-year-old daughter who acquires a suit like her father’s. He is scientifically inclined, and is interested in Pym’s old notes and learning more about science and technology from the quantum realm. Reed said that he wanted to further develop the relationship between Casey and Scott, as it was central to the previous Ant-Man films. The character was previously portrayed by Abby Ryder Fortson in the previous Ant-Man films and as a teenager by Emma Fuhrman in Endgame.
David Dustmalchian as Veb: A slime-like creature living in the Quantum Realm whose stream anyone can understand the language of the Quantum Realm. Dustmalchian previously played Kurt in the first two Ant-Man films.
Katy O’Brien as Gentora:
The humanoid leader of the Freedom Fighters rebelling against Kang’s oppression of the community in the Quantum Realm. O’Brien auditioned for the role despite having worked with Reed on the Star Wars series The Mandalorian and originally believed he was auditioning for The Marvels (2023). Despite the character appearing in the comics, O’Brien was encouraged to create the character as he chose. O’Brien previously appeared as Kimball in the Marvel television series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
William Jackson Harper as Quazz: A humanoid telepath living in the quantum realm.
Bill Murray as Lord Creeler:
The humanoid governor of the extraordinary Axia community in the Quantum Realm, who has a history with Janet Van Dyne in the Quantum Realm. Reed believed that the Murray character represented a man’s past that “always finds a way to show up again” and the film’s theme of secrets between family members and how they are each affected by them.
Michelle Pfeiffer as Janet Van Dyne / The Wasp: Pym’s wife, Hope’s mother, and the original Wasp, who was lost in the Quantum Realm for 30 years.
Darren Cross / M.O.D.O.K. As Corey Stoll:
Pym’s former protégé who was shrunk to subatomic size in the quantum realm during the events of Ant-Man (2015) and M.O.D.O.K. Became a mutated, cybernetically advanced person with a large head known as Loveness described the character as a cross between Kevin Kline’s Otto West from A Fish Called Wanda (1988) and Frank Grimes from The Simpsons season eight episode “Homer’s Enemy” (1997). Feelings of Love M.O.D.O.K. for being his favorite character in the film because they put him “a little extra”, and stated that M.O.D.O.K.’s ego would crumble throughout the film whenever he was challenged, but like Otto West, easily kills as a “real loose cannon”.
Michael Douglas as Dr. Hank Pym/Ant-Man:
A former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, entomologist, and physicist who became the original Ant-Man after developing the suit. In the film, Pym was written as more “relaxed” than in previous MCU appearances, as he focuses more on reacquainting himself with Janet than on his work. As a result, Broussard describes Pym as “a little too sure of himself” and “not looking around every corner”. Loveness believed that Pym’s fascination with ants, a trait that had been ironically mentioned earlier, was a critical feature of the character and thus decided to expand on it in the film. Broussard felt the expansion was “a strange thing … but terrifying … a bit of a recognition … a strange obsession for this man who owned it completely.”
Additionally, Randall Park briefly reprises his role as FBI agent Jimmy Wu from previous MCU media, along with Greg Turkington as Baskin-Robbins store manager Dale from Ant-Man. Ruben Rabasa appears as a coffee shop attendant who mistakes Ant-Man for Spider-Man. A man asks Lang for a picture with his dog, played by Mark Oliver Everett, frontman of the rock band Eels, whose father was the quantum physicist Hugh Everett III and the originator of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum theory. Roger Craig Smith and Matthew Wood voice the Quantumnauts, Kang’s foot soldiers. The film’s post-credits scene features unexpected cameo appearances by Tom Hiddleston and Wayne Wilson, with Loki from Loki and Mobius M.

Box Office

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantummania grossed $214.5 million in the United States and Canada and $261.6 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $476.1 million. It was a box-office disappointment, falling short of the stated break-even point of $600 million.
In January 2023, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantummania was projected to gross $120 million in North America over the four-day President’s Day opening weekend. The following month, it was projected to debut with $105-110 million domestically and $280 million worldwide in its opening weekend. The film grossed $46 million on its first day, including $17.5 million in Thursday previews that opened at 3 P.M. It debuted to $106.1 million from 4,345 theaters (and a four-day frame total of $120.4 million), the best opening of the Ant-Man series and third best for a February release behind Black Panther. $242.1 million in 2018) and Deadpool ($152.1 million in 2016) saw the film drop 69% in its second weekend, falling to $32 million in North America, the largest second-week domestic drop-off of any Marvel Cinematic Universe film. In its third weekend, the film grossed $12.4 million, down 61%.
Outside the United States and Canada, the film grossed $121.3 million in its opening weekend. In its second weekend, the film dropped 57% to $46.4 million, and remained the number one non-domestic film in most markets. The film grossed $22 million in its third weekend from 52 markets, down 53%. The top five international markets were China ($39.4 million), United Kingdom ($23.9 million), Mexico ($18 million), France ($13.6 million), and South Korea ($12.6 million).

About

Directed by	Peyton Reed
Written by	Jeff Loveness
Based on	Marvel Comics
Produced by	·         Kevin Feige ·         Stephen Broussard
Starring	·         Paul Rudd ·         Evangeline Lilly ·         Jonathan Majors ·         Kathryn Newton ·         David Dastmalchian ·         Katy O’Brian ·         William Jackson Harper ·         Bill Murray ·         Michelle Pfeiffer ·         Corey Stoll ·         Michael Douglas
Cinematography	Bill Pope
Edited by	·         Adam Gerstel ·         Laura Jennings
Music by	Christophe Beck
Production company	Marvel Studios
Distributed by	Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
Release dates	·         February 6, 2023 (Regency Village Theatre) ·         February 17, 2023 (United States)
Running time	124 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$200 million
Box office	$476.1 million

ScreenShots