It’s been about three months since the Marvel Cinematic Universe shelved its disappointing Phase 4 with the surprising —for the better— ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’. Of course, there is still a lot of fabric to cut in the current arc known as ‘Multiverse Saga’and the next superhero to hit the big screen will be the incorrigible Scott Lang, who will plunge into the quantum world in ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’.
On the occasion of the imminent premiere of the inaugural film of Phase 5 of the MCU, which will arrive in our theaters on February 17thwe have been able to attend the press conference -virtual, yes- in which the director Peyton Reed, the producers Kevin Feige and Stephen Broussard and cast members like Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Jonathan Majors or Kathryn Newton They have given some details about the brand new adventure of Ant-Man in the Quantum Realm.
family matters
Since we had our first contact with Scott Lang in the original ‘Ant-Man’, The saga of the superhero Marvelita has seen its narrative core in the concept of family, and ‘Quantumania’ is by no means an exception. Peyton Reed has thus explained the importance of the consanguineous factor in the new tape.
“The Ant-Man movies have always been about family. It’s a generational story about a family of heroes. Scott Lang, who’s not some super-scientist billionaire and gets dragged into this world, and Hope Van Dyne, who’s the The daughter of two legendary superheroes, and now young Cassie Lang, who is probably Scott’s biggest motivation, he wants to be a superhero, obviously, because he’s an Avenger, but it’s all about work-life balance, and what more important is having time to spend with your daughter.
One of the things we’ve done in ‘Quantumania’ is to continue this story and talk about the secrets that family members keep. At first we find out that maybe Janet hasn’t told her family about the 30 years she’s spent in the Quantum Realm, maybe Hope and Hank haven’t told Scott what they’ve been working on with Cassie in the basement… Everyone is keeping secrets from Scott at the beginning of the movie, and suddenly they find themselves in the Quantum Realm and they have to work out all this family business in this strange place.”
This idea is reinforced by Paul Rudd’s point of view on his character and on the how scott lang has evolved from the first delivery.
“[Scott Lang] he wants to be a father and that is his main focus. I think he’s always had a love hate relationship with it, but he’s finally accepted it and is happy to be able to have a more or less normal life and spend time together. [con su familia]. Of course, it doesn’t last as long as you’d like, but I think you’ve matured a lot over the last nine years. She had a normal job, she was dragged into that group without having any superpowers, and she fought Thanos. She’s been through a few things and has accepted who he is. He now wants to have time to be a normal father, and there are some problems about it because he has missed out on a lot.”
the quantum realm
How could it be otherwise, one of the issues that have been put on the table has revolved around the Quantum Realm. What is really this space? No one better than Kevin Feige, head honcho of Marvel Studios, to shed some light on it.
“The first time we saw the Quantum Realm was in the first ‘Ant-Man,’ and it was an idea Paul had. [Rudd] at the beginning, before we started shooting; what would happen if we explored these quantum mechanics. Things work very differently at the quantum level, and Paul was thinking about the storytelling possibilities and the fun we could get out of it. At the end of the movie we had an appetizer, and that’s what led us to ‘Avengers: Endgame’. There it was presented to us as a place where at a subatomic level time and space work differently, and it allowed us to travel back in time and have this quantum madness in this movie.”
The theory is more or less clear, but now it remains to be seen how it was put into practice. Peyton Reed has given some clues about the aesthetic and visual bases and influences who embraced to bring the Quantum Realm to the screen.
“We looked at a lot of things, starting with electronic macro photography. In things like ’70s and ’80s Heavy Metal magazine, there are Moebius elements… We got a group of visual artists together and said, ‘Let’s create the Quantum Realm’; a very vivid world with its own history, its own internal logic, its creatures and inhabitants. It was a part of the MCU that we were able to create on our own, and it was one of the most exciting things about the project.
We are inspired by many things. In ‘Flash Gordon’, in ‘Barbarella’, on old sci-fi magazine covers from the 50s, 60s and 70s and, once again, in real macro photography. They are very, very small things, but when you print them out and look at them, they look like landscapes.”
arrival of the conqueror
As expected, one of the elements of ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’ that is fueling the fandom’s hype the most is none other than the villain of the show; a Kang the Conqueror who we could see briefly in the last episode of ‘Loki’ and who will enter the MCU through the front door in the length at hand. But, Why in this movie and not in another? Kevin Feige tells us.
“Phase 4 was focused on introducing new characters and heroes, and we decided to start Phase 5 with familiar and beloved characters and use them, along with those concepts of family and vulnerability. And who better to take on one of the biggest villains than The ones the MCU has faced than this family that you might think won’t be able to take care of him. Then you find out that Janet has been taking care of him for decades.”
We know the opinion of the architect of the Marvel Universe, but what about the actor in charge of playing Kang? Jonathan Majors tells us a bit about who the villain is in charge of putting our superheroes in check in the Multiverse Saga.
“Who is Kang is a question we’ll be answering for a long time. The short answer is that he’s a supervillain who travels through time. Then there’s the idea of variants. There are many versions of Kang inhabiting different multiverses and universes, that they have different intentions; they are different beings. The Kang from ‘Quantumania’ is trapped in the Quantum Realm and he’s not happy about it.”
There is no doubt that Majors has a great challenge ahead of him having to play different variants of the same character, and he has given some clues about his creative process.
“It all comes down to who is my director and who is my hero. As an antagonist, we follow our heroes. We look at them and analyze them, that’s the fun part. You can’t take on someone if you don’t know who they are, if you don’t know what they are the opposite of him or her, if you don’t know what their hopes and dreams are.In ‘Loki’ I faced Tom [Hiddleston], the opportunity caught me during the lockdown and I studied Tom for hours and now I have done the same with Paul Rudd. Kang has to see himself reflected in them as a human being in order to fight with them afterwards. The rest is just studying.”
In a few days we can immerse ourselves in the Quantum Realm by Scott Lang and company. If you have read me lately you will know that I am quite saturated with the MCU, but I must admit that ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’ is powerfully calling my attention. Let’s hope it meets expectations.