Earlier this month, a promo for Ant-Man and the Wasp flew online that featured Paul Rudd and Evangeline Lilly attempting to imitate each member of the Avengers: Infinity War cast in just one gesture. But the truth is, Scott Lang and Hope van Dyne’s latest outing already saw the Wasp and her parents do a pitch-perfect impression of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes – well, half of them anyway – when the three of them turned to dust as a result of Thanos’ genocidal finger-snap, leaving Scott marooned in the depths of the Quantum Realm.
For the sake of this post-credits cliffhanger, it was perhaps necessary that everyone present after Ant-Man ventured into this mysterious zone suffered the same sad fate, so that no one could be left to heed his cries for help. In that sense, the creative team behind the MCU flick had to think carefully about who to include in this pivotal sequence and moreover, how many should be present, given that Thanos’ world-changing feat only led to half of the universe’s population being wiped out.
Speaking to the Huffington Post, Peyton Reed provided a little context on their eventual selections of Hope, Hank and Janet as the unfortunate three, saying:
“A big part of it was deciding who was going to be in that scene to begin with, because there was a version of that scene I think where it’s like, ‘OK, maybe Bill Foster is here as well, maybe Ava Starr is here as well.'” Reed said. “We talked about versions with ― and maybe Luis, or whoever, it could’ve been anybody ― but then there’s a certain percentage issue that’s set up obviously in Infinity War that we couldn’t ignore. When we finally landed on the version that you saw, the final version in the movie, it just seemed right.”
While these post-credit deaths served as a pretty harsh addendum to an otherwise breezy, low-stakes adventure, it certainly feels appropriately tragic for this entire family to be dusted so soon after their long-awaited reunion. Consequently, Ant-Man and the Wasp left Scott in a pretty tough spot, and you probably shouldn’t expect to see his situation resolved until Avengers 4 comes out on May 3rd, 2019.
