The narrative of Marvel movies —and of sagas in general, it seems— is neither created nor destroyed, it transforms as it goes along, and the latest example of this is found in ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania ‘; Peyton Reed’s feature film with which Phase 5 began after what has probably been the worst stage of the MCU since its start.
the three rewrites
There is no doubt that one of the great claims of the production was the presence of an icon of the stature of Bill Murray in its cast. A role that, in principle, should have had much more weight in the narrative, but that ended up reduced to little more than a cameo in the cutting room —Watch out for mild spoilers from now on.
In Ant-Man’s latest adventure, Krylar, Murray’s character, ends up eaten by a monster at the first chance, but the original idea was for him to accompany the group of protagonists until he ended up arrested by Kang and sent to the prison where he would agree with Jentorra. Katy O’Brian, who gives life to the warrior of the Quantum World, has explained it this way in an interview with Inverse.
“I had a couple of fight scenes that got cut out and a couple of moments with Bill Murray. Instead of him getting killed, he had a space chase with them and ended up getting arrested by Kang or something. It was too much. The movie would have gone on.” three hours.
They take him to jail and then he did some scenes there. Then I helped him escape, and then he pretends that he’s with me all the time and ready to fight. And I’m like: ‘Come on, man’.”
Once again, we are faced with a case that perfectly illustrates the audacity of judging feature film scripts without having previously read them. And it is that what has been projected on paper is rewritten on set and in the editing room until, on occasions, it gives shape to products that are very different from those originally conceived by their scribes.