Spoilers ahead for Avengers: Infinity War and Ant-Man and The Wasp.
Since Avengers: Infinity War arrived months ago and changed the Marvel Cinematic Universe as we knew it, fans and cinephiles have been wondering what The Russo Brothers could possibly be planning for the untitled Avengers 4 movie. Unfortunately, there's quite a bit of time left before our answers arrive, with two Marvel movies arriving in the interim. The first of which was Peyton Reed's Ant-Man and The Wasp, which ran parallel to the events of Infinity War. The sequel didn't connect to the battle against Thanos until its mid-credits scene, where Hope, Janet, and Hank faded away to dust, leaving Scott stranded in the Quantum Realm. Reed recently explained why he loved the sequence, and how it mirrored the quirky tone of the Ant-Man franchise.
Oh, where are they now? What's happening in this tag? They're doing some type of quantum experiment, there's Luis's van --- throwing all these things at the audience immediately to catch them off guard. Janet's in street clothes and he's in the Ant-Man suit, Hope's handing him something, what are they doing? Something about Ghost? And then, bam, just punching the audience in the gut with it. It felt like a very Ant-Man and the Wasp way to deal with this gigantic, dramatic happening at the end of Infinity War.
He's got a point. The Ant-Man franchise is known for its quirky and surprising tone, so its connection to the greater shared universe should be handled as such. So when Thanos' finger snap came for Peyton Reed's characters, it needed to be appropriately quirky.
Peyton Reed's comments to the Empire Film Podcast show how specifically the director thought about Ant-Man and The Wasp's mid-credits scene. Reed is famously not a fan of crossovers, and would prefer to have some ownership over Scott Lang and the rest of the crew. But with Ant-Man being noticeably absent from Infinity War, the fandom is eager for Paul Rudd's character to factor into the shared universe's greater narrative.
Ant-Man and The Wasp ended with Scott, and the rest of the crew doing a new experiment in the Quantum Realm in an attempt to help Ghost's condition. There's plenty of bantering and Ant-Man humor, and he promptly departs. Still high from the movie's excitement and happy ending montage, all looks well. But then Ant-Man and is left with radio silence, we see the last specks of dust falling to the ground, meaning with Hope, Hank, and Janet victims of Thanos' finger snap of death. It's unclear how Scott will survive, with fans theorizing he might access an alternate dimension or even time travel while exploring the Quantum Realm.
All will be revealed when Avengers 4 arrives in theaters on May 3rd, 2019. In the meantime, check out our 2018 release list to plan your next trip to the movies.
