Quantumania

''Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania'' is a 2023 American superhero film based on Marvel Comics featuring the characters Scott Lang / Ant-Man and Hope Pym / Wasp. Produced by Marvel Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, it is the sequel to ''Ant-Man'' (2015) and ''Ant-Man and the Wasp'' (2018), and the 31st film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). It was directed by Peyton Reed, written by Jeff Loveness, and stars Paul Rudd as Scott Lang and Evangeline Lilly as Hope van Dyne, alongside Jonathan Majors, Kathryn Newton, David Dastmalchian, Katy O'Brian, William Jackson Harper, Bill Murray, Michelle Pfeiffer, Corey Stoll, and Michael Douglas. In the film, Scott, Hope, and their family are accidentally transported to the Quantum Realm and face off against Kang the Conqueror (Majors).

Plans for a third ''Ant-Man'' film were confirmed in November 2019, with Reed and Rudd returning. Loveness was hired by April 2020, with development beginning during the COVID-19 pandemic. The title and new cast members, including the additions of Majors and Newton, were announced in December 2020. Filming in Turkey began in early February 2021, and additional filming occurred in San Francisco in mid-June. Principal photography began at the end of July at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire and ended in November.

''Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania'' premiered in Westwood, Los Angeles, on February 6, 2023, and was released in the United States on February 17. It is the first film, and beginning, of Phase Five of the MCU. The film received mixed reviews from critics. It was a box-office disappointment, grossing $476.1 million worldwide against a gross production budget of $388.4 million and becoming one of the few MCU films not to break-even in its theatrical run.

Plot

Following the Avengers's battle against Thanos, Scott Lang has become a successful memoirist and has been living happily with his girlfriend, Hope van Dyne. Scott's now-teenage daughter Cassie has become an activist, helping people displaced by the Blip, resulting in her having a strained relationship with her father. While visiting Hope's parents, Hank Pym and Janet van Dyne, Cassie reveals that she has been working on a device that can establish contact with the Quantum Realm. Upon learning of this, Janet panics and forcefully shuts off the device, but the message is received, resulting in a portal that opens and sucks the five of them into the Quantum Realm. Scott and Cassie are found by natives who are rebelling against their ruler, while Hope, Janet, and Hank explore a sprawling city to get answers.

Hope, Janet, and Hank meet with Lord Krylar, a former ally of Janet's, who reveals that things have changed since she left, and that he is now working for Kang, the Quantum Realm's new ruler. The three are forced to flee and steal Krylar's ship. The Langs, meanwhile, are told by rebel leader Jentorra that Janet's involvement with Kang is indirectly responsible for his rise to power. The rebels soon come under attack by Kang's forces led by M.O.D.O.K., who is revealed to be Darren Cross, having survived his apparent death at the hands of Scott, and who previously received Cassie's message. Aboard Krylar's ship, Janet confesses to Hope and Hank that she met Kang when she was previously in the Quantum Realm. He claimed that he and Janet could both escape from the Quantum Realm if she helped him rebuild his multiversal power core. After they managed to repair it, Janet saw a vision of Kang conquering and destroying entire timelines. Kang revealed he was exiled by his variants out of fear, which drove Janet to turn against him. Outmatched, Janet used her Pym Particles to enlarge the power core beyond use. Kang, having regained his powers, eventually conquered the Quantum Realm afterward.

The Langs are taken to Kang, who demands that Scott help get his power core back or else he will kill Cassie. Scott is then taken to the core's location and shrinks down. In the core, he encounters a probability storm, which causes him to split into multiple copies of himself nearly overwhelming him, but Hope arrives and helps him acquire the power core. However, Kang reneges on the deal, capturing Janet with M.O.D.O.K. destroying her ship with Hank on it. After being rescued by his ants, who rapidly evolved and became hyper-intelligent after being pulled into the Quantum Realm, Hank helps Scott and Hope as they make their way to Kang. Cassie rescues Jentorra and they commence an uprising against Kang and his army. During the fight, Cassie convinces Cross to switch sides and fight Kang, with him eventually sacrificing his life.

Janet fixes the power core as she, Hank, Hope, and Cassie jump through a portal home. Kang attacks Scott at the last minute. Before he can beat Scott into submission, Hope returns, and she and Scott throw Kang and the Pym Particles into the power core, destroying them both. Cassie reopens the portal for Scott and Hope to return home. As Scott happily resumes his life, he begins to rethink what he was told about Kang's death being the start of something terrible happening, but brushes it off. In a mid-credits scene, numerous variants of Kang, led by Immortus, commiserate Kang's death and plan their multiversal uprising. In a post-credits scene, Loki and Mobius M. Mobius encounter another Kang variant, Victor Timely, at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893.

Cast

* Paul Rudd as Scott Lang / Ant-Man:
An Avenger and former petty criminal with a suit that allows him to shrink or grow in scale while increasing in strength. After the events of '' Avengers: Endgame'' (2019), Scott has become a well-known celebrity to the public, as well as the author of an autobiographical book titled ''Look Out for the Little Guy'', which tells a different version of how he helped save the universe from Thanos in ''Endgame''.
* Evangeline Lilly as Hope van Dyne / Wasp:
The daughter of Hank Pym and Janet van Dyne who is handed down a similar suit and the Wasp mantle from her mother. She serves as the head of the Pym van Dyne Foundation, which uses the Pym Particles for humanitarian efforts. Lilly said the film would explore how the character deals with her "fragilities and her vulnerabilities", continuing from how ''Ant-Man and the Wasp'' (2018) showed how powerful and capable she was.
* Jonathan Majors as Kang the Conqueror:
A "time-traveling, multiversal adversary" trapped in the Quantum Realm who needs Pym Particles to get his ship and a device online that would allow him to go anywhere and when in time. Kang is an alternate-timeline variant of the character He Who Remains, the creator of the Time Variance Authority (TVA), who was introduced in the finale of first season of ''Loki'' (2021). Kang was described by ''Loki'' season one head writer Michael Waldron as the "next big cross-movie villain" for the MCU, while ''Quantumania'' writer Jeff Loveness described Kang as a "top-tier, A-list Avengers villain". Majors said Kang is different from He Who Remains, who is not in ''Quantumania'', with a shifted psychology, portraying Kang differently from He Who Remains due to the different characters surrounding him and transitioning from a series to a film. He was attracted to Kang's "character and dimensions" and the potential that presented to him as an actor, noting Kang would be a different type of villain to the MCU than Erik Killmonger and Thanos were, as well as the possibility of playing a complex villain about whom everyone has to be careful, akin to Iago in William Shakespeare's tragedy ''Othello''. Loveness wanted to focus on Kang as a human being by exploring his humanity and vulnerability as a "very lonely" character before he reaches "apocalyptic, Avengers-scale heights". He contrasted this to Thanos by not creating him entirely from computer-generated imagery, and said Kang would be "Thanos on an exponential level". He also said that because the concept of time travel had already been explored in ''Endgame'', he had to broaden his approach to Kang to focus more on the multiverse, his dimensionality, and his "limitless freedom" from his time, and how different versions of the character would destroy it and make it their own. Loveness researched the different versions of Kang from the comics such as Rama-Tut and the Scarlet Centurion and described him as an "infinite snake eating infinite tails" in being "a man literally at war against himself". Director Peyton Reed likened the character to Alexander the Great as a reference point for Majors, who also found inspiration in Genghis Khan and Julius Caesar. Majors said that Kang would be the "supervillain of supervillains" and looked to contrast Tony Stark / Iron Man, who he called the "superhero of superheroes". Majors added of muscle for the role, focusing on strength and conditioning training. Reed said ''Quantumania'' would show a "different flavor" of Majors's approach to Kang's alternate versions and explained that Kang "has dominion over time", calling him a warrior, strategist, and "all-timer antagonist" compared to the antagonists of the prior ''Ant-Man'' films as a "force of nature", one that adds "tonal diversity, real conflict and real friction". Given his work with time, Kang does not live a linear life.
** Majors also portrays numerous Kang variants within the Council of Kangs including Immortus, Rama-Tut, and Centurion in the mid-credits scene, as well as the variant Victor Timely in the post-credits scene.
* Kathryn Newton as Cassie Lang:
Scott Lang's 18-year-old daughter who acquires a suit similar to her father's. She is scientifically inclined, and gains an interest in Pym's old notes and learning more about the science and technology from the Quantum Realm. Reed said that he wanted to further develop the relationship between Cassie and Scott, as it was central to the previous ''Ant-Man'' films. The character was previously portrayed as a child by Abby Ryder Fortson in the previous ''Ant-Man'' films and as a teenager by Emma Fuhrmann in ''Endgame''.
* David Dastmalchian as Veb: A slime-like creature that lives in the Quantum Realm whose ooze can make anyone understand Quantum Realm language. Dastmalchian previously portrayed Kurt in the first two ''Ant-Man'' films.
* Katy O'Brian as Jentorra:
The human-shaped leader of the Freedom Fighters rebelling against Kang's oppression of the communities in the Quantum Realm. O'Brian auditioned for the role, despite previously working with Reed on the ''Star Wars'' series ''The Mandalorian'', and originally believed she was auditioning for ''The Marvels'' (2023). Despite the character appearing in the comics, O'Brian was encouraged to create the character as she chose. O'Brian previously appeared as Kimball in the Marvel Television series ''Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.''
* William Jackson Harper as Quaz: A humanoid telepath who lives in the Quantum Realm.
* Bill Murray as Lord Krylar:
The human-shaped governor of the lavish Axia community in the Quantum Realm, who has a history with Janet van Dyne in the Quantum Realm. Reed believed Murray's character represented a person's past "always find nga way to show up again" and the film's theme of secrets between family members and how they are each affected by them.
* Michelle Pfeiffer as Janet Van Dyne / Wasp: Pym's wife, Hope's mother, and the original Wasp, who was lost in the Quantum Realm for 30 years.
* Corey Stoll as Darren Cross / M.O.D.O.K.:
Pym's former protégé who was shrunken to subatomic size in the Quantum Realm during the events of ''Ant-Man'' (2015) and became a mutated, cybernetically enhanced individual with an oversized head known as M.O.D.O.K. Loveness described the character as a cross between Kevin Kline's Otto West from ''A Fish Called Wanda'' (1988) and Frank Grimes from ''The Simpsons'' season eight episode "Homer's Enemy" (1997). Loveness felt M.O.D.O.K. to be his favorite character in the film because they put a "little extra" on him, and said M.O.D.O.K.'s ego would be crumbled throughout the film whenever he is challenged, but like Otto West, easily kills as a "real loose cannon".
* Michael Douglas as Dr. Hank Pym / Ant-Man:
A former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, entomologist, and physicist who became the original Ant-Man after creating the suit. In the film, Pym was written to be more "relaxed" than in previous MCU appearances, as he is more focused on reacquainting with Janet than his work. As a result, Broussard described Pym as "a little more sure of himself" and "not looking around every corner". Loveness believed that Pym's fascination with ants, a trait only comically referenced previously, was a critical hallmark of the character, and thus decided to expand on it in the film. Broussard felt the expansion was "a weird thing ... but also awesome ... a bit of an acknowledgment of ... a weird obsession for this guy who's totally owned it."

Additionally, Randall Park briefly reprises his role as FBI agent Jimmy Woo from previous MCU media, along with Gregg Turkington as Baskin-Robbins