Joe and Anthony Russo's Avengers: Infinity War will likely go down as the biggest film of 2018, full of massive consequences for the Marvel Cinematic Universe -- but it also puts the upcoming Ant-Man and The Wasp in a weird position. After all, it's hard to follow the heart-stopping climax featured in the April release. That being said, the movie is finding a way around it, as Peyton Reed describes the film as essentially being completely independent of Marvel's 19th film:
We definitely had to deal with the ramifications post-[Captain America:] Civil War. That was crucial to Scott, and crucial to Hope. I mean, it really is fundamental in the jumping off point about what's going between the two of them at the start of this movie. Outside of that, what I'm really happy about is we're free to tell sort of our freestanding story. Once we establish that as the leaping off point, [Ant-Man and The Wasp] is going on over here, with huge personal stakes, and huge other stakes that are really separate of what's going on with [Avengers:] Infinity War. So that, again, is something that was really, really appealing to me, is to not have to... we have enough stuff to track in this movie without having to sort of keep abreast of what's going on in that.
So for those of you thinking that Ant-Man and The Wasp will feature some kind of epic crossover with Avengers: Infinity War, you may not want to hold your breath (discounting whatever goes on in the post-credits sequences, which have a tendency to operate separately from the main film). Peyton Reed said as much last year during an interview on the Atlanta, Georgia set of his new movie, which I had the opportunity to visit with a small group of other film journalists. During the roundtable, I asked the filmmaker how his blockbuster was being constructed in coordination with the Joe and Anthony Russo-directed film (which was being made on the same lot), and he made a big point about his independence in the grand scope of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Rather than taking place at the same time as Avengers: Infinity War, Ant-Man and The Wasp will instead be set a few months after the events of Captain America: Civil War. Having been freed from The Raft by the star-spangled man with a plan, Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) decides to turn himself in, and he is sentenced to house arrest. Deciding that he really wants to turn his life around, he chooses to stay under the radar and behave, but that's before Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly) and Dr. Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) reluctantly recruit him for a dangerous mission involving the Quantum Realm. Before long, Scott is once again growing and shrinking as Ant-Man, teaming-up with his partner to help save the world.
Much about Ant-Man and The Wasp has been kept pretty hush-hush up until now, but this is just the start of our coverage from our visit to the set. Be on the lookout for more of our coverage, and get ready for Marvel's 20th blockbuster, which will be in theaters on July 6th.
