Now that Ant-Man and the Wasp is on Marvel’s film slate, fans are speculating on what the sequel will be about. One of the lingering plot threads left over from Ant-Man is whether or not Hank Pym’s wife Janet van Dyne is still alive. Although Janet was briefly seen in a flashback, her face was covered the whole time by her Wasp helmet, so there’s an opening for an actress to fill her shoes. Janet’s fate in the MCU is still uncertain, but should she be added to the sequel, Evangeline Lilly is keen on a comic book movie veteran playing Hope van Dyne’s mother.
Following up on her comments made during the summer, Lilly told Omelete (translated via Google Translate) that while she doesn’t yet know what’s in store for Ant-Man and the Wasp, Michelle Pfeiffer is her top choice to play Janet van Dyne. She said:
I do not know anything about Ant-Man and Wasp. Marvel didn’t tell me anything, but wouldn’t it be cool if Hope was behind her mother (?) and if she was played by Michelle Pfeiffer?
Superhero fans known Pfeiffer best as Selina Kyle, a.k.a. Catwoman, from 1992’s Batman Returns, and Lilly said earlier this year that Pfeiffer’s version of the feline antagonist was her favorite comic book character. Pfeiffer and Douglas certainly seem like they would make a good duo on the big screen, and it would give the actress the chance to contribute to Marvel over 20 years after leaving her mark on DC. However, if Janet is retrieved from the Quantum Realm, it’s unclear whether she continued to age while trapped there or if the process was somehow halted. If it’s the latter, one would imagine they would cast a younger actress in the role, but if it’s the former, then Pfeiffer would be a good fit. (Though personally I think it would be interesting if Douglas’ real life wife Catherine Zeta-Jones took the role.)
In Ant-Man, Janet was seen as Hank’s partner while they were S.H.I.E.L.D. agents in the 1980s. During their last mission together, Janet shrunk smaller than she ever had in order to disable a missile heading for the United States. Although she was successful, she was unable to revert to normal size and disappeared. Since Scott was able to escape the Quantum Realm with the aid of one of Hank’s enlargement discs, the scientist wondered whether it’s possible his wife is still alive. Lilly’s "behind her mother" comment also seems to suggest that she thinks it would be a neat idea if Hope was somehow responsible for bringing her mother back to our plane of existence.
While there’s no guarantee we’ll see Janet return to the land of normal-sized people, Hope will continue the Wasp legacy and team up with Scott Lang’s in 2018’s Ant-Man and the Wasp.
