Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania is the upcoming Marvel superhero film featuring Paul Rudd’s Scott Lang, who can change his size from bigger than a building to smaller than an atom.
Marvel’s presence over the weekend at San Diego Comic-Con provided many reveals for the movie, including the official release date, a teaser trailer, the cast, and more.
Release date and cast
Thanks to a string of announcements, we now know Quantumania will kick off Marvel’s Phase Five on February 17, 2023, with Rudd returning in the titular role as Ant-Man and Evangeline Lilly’s Hope Van Dyne also returning to the big screen as The Wasp. The film will also be a family affair, with Michael Douglas’ Hank Pym and Michelle Pfeiffer’s Janet Van Dyne joining in on the fun of exploring the Quantum Realm.
According to Marvel‘s official website, the sub-atomic-sized adventuring includes “interacting with strange new creatures and embarking on an adventure that will push them beyond the limits of what they thought possible.”
We also know that Scott’s daughter, Cassie Lang, as portrayed by Kathryn Newton, will be part of the adventuring. Though Newton was present at SDCC, she remained tight-lipped about Cassie’s role in the upcoming movie and the nature of the character’s relationship with her father:
“Cassie is becoming who she’s supposed to be. And I don’t want to say anything else!” Newton said.
Considering Scott was gone for five years — due to being caught in the Quantum Realm during the blip — and reunited with an older Cassie, as we saw in Avengers: Endgame (then played by Emma Fuhrmann), we could easily see Quantumania‘s story addressing their forced estrangement and rebuilding their father-daughter relationship.
Even though Newton was mostly mum at the convention, Deadline has already revealed Cassie will be a superhero in Quantumania, with “the same powers as her father: the ability to shrink and grow,” with an alias known as Stature. Based on the poster for the movie, fans have already ascertained, by process of elimination, that she is the hero sporting a purple outfit, similar to Scott’s, and rocking converse sneakers to tie the outfit together.
Another character reveal was embedded in that same poster looming ominously in the background: Jonathan Majors’ Kang the Conqueror, who was first introduced in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the Disney Plus show Loki. Kang also looks to be the MCU’s next Thanos-level villain, as well, as it was revealed at SDCC that one of the films in Phase Six is called Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, a movie that won’t be released until 2025.
In addition to Kang, MODOK was also revealed as a villain character who will be making an appearance in the movie, as revealed by descriptions of the teaser trailer. Though MODOK’s appearance was unmistakable, it’s still unknown who will play the character as of this writing.
Lastly, a big name-actor who is part of the lineup of cast members rounding out Quantumania is Bill Murray in a still-unnamed role, according to the film’s IMDb page. Murray’s secret role is reportedly as a resident of a society located within the Quantum Realm, according to The Direct.
Below is a list of castmembers from previous Ant-Man films — whether that’s the first movie, its sequel, or both — who we really hope will show up for Quantumania but who have not yet been officially confirmed:
- Michael Peña’s Luis
- T.I.’s Dave
- David Dastmalchian’s Kurt
- Randall Park’s Jimmy Woo
- Bobby Cannavale’s Paxton
- Judy Greer’s Maggie
- Hannah John-Kamen’s Ava, aka Ghost
Teaser trailer
Details about Murray’s role in Quantumania, which would seemingly rule out him playing MODOK, originates from descriptions of the exclusive teaser that was shown at SDCC.
Unfortunately, the teaser has not been officially released by Marvel Studios to the public quite yet. Some leaks have surfaced, but we won’t reproduce them here because they are of such low quality that it’s hardly discernable as to what is going on in viewing the cell-phone-captured video. Plus, the leaks we’ve seen so far appear to be incomplete, as well. However, we have gotten some play-by-play descriptions of what happened in the teaser.
The trailer begins by showing Scott Lang using his involvement in the war against Thanos to help save the world as a catapulting point for gaining “international fame,” The Wrap disclosed. This has escalated to the point where Scott even writes a book called Watch Out for the Little Guy!, in what was called a “heartwarming moment.”
The Marvel website confirmed the title of the book that Scott wrote within the film, with a quote from Rudd during a panel that summed up his character’s starting position in the movie:
“Scott is pretty pleased with himself in his role with saving the universe.”
However, things take a dark turn from that very Rock II-esque starting point when Cassie gets arrested, as Scott learns from a phone call from the San Francisco Police Department.
Scott bails Cassie out and they all have dinner at the Pyms’ house, with many of the characters comedically roasting Scott “for constantly mentioning he saved the world,” according to The Wrap’s description.
After that, the team of heroes begins participating in a science experiment of some kind, which all culminates in Cassie getting “sucked into a vortex.” Scott and the rest of the gang similarly get sucked into the vortex, too.
We then see the superhero team exploring different societies that live within the Quantum Realm, including Murray’s character as a resident of one of those societies. What’s more, Murray’s character also appears to have a history with Pfeiffer’s Janet.
A final confrontation between Scott and Kang caps off the trailer, with Ant-Man himself warning the nigh-all-powerful being, “You’re making a big mistake… I’m an Avenger.”
“Didn’t I kill you before?” was Kang’s chilling response.
And of course, MODOK also made a brief but memorable cameo in the trailer.
2015’s Ant-Man and its sequel, 2018’s Ant-Man and The Wasp, have both carved out a unique niche in the MCU, starting out life by zeroing in on a novel genre for the franchise, with the first movie being a heist film, and the series never letting up on the action and hilariously improvised scenes amongst their actors ever since.
Peyton Reed, the director of the first two Ant-Man films, has returned to helm Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania, as well. The film comes to theaters on Feb. 17, 2023.
