‘Ant-Man and the Wasp; Quantumania’ was influenced by a pair of unlikely classics

We’re just two days out from the debut of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, and our hearts are pounding with both excitement and an equally palpable fear as we anticipate what Kang the Conqueror has in store for Scott Lang and company. We already know that Jonathan Majors’ terrifying villain won’t be meeting his end here, and we won’t be surprised if a member of the Ant-Man family, or the title hero himself, ends up in that position instead.

If Kang is their greatest danger, then the elements of the Quantum Realm are a very capable warmup; audiences have only caught brief glimpses of this microscopic universe in the previous two Ant-Man films, but Quantumania will be the first time we see the alternate dimension in its entirety, denizens, cities, and all.

Indeed, aside from Janet van Dyne, the gang are entering the least-charted territory possible, and Quantumania producer Stephen Broussard pulled out some high-profile inspirational material to ensure that such a feeling was fully realized. In an interview with /Film, Broussard revealed that the Quantumania creative team looked to such films as Jurassic Park and The Wizard of Oz in order to nail that ethos of “strangers in a strange land.”

“We talked about Jurassic Park, getting caught in the park. Or Wizard of Oz, obviously, looms large over any conversations like that. That’s an interesting ‘stranger in a strange land’ structure. And I think being with those characters helps balance those different elements, to your point.”

Interestingly, such inspirations – whether intentionally or not – go far beyond the goal mentioned by Broussard. There may be no dinosaurs in Quantumania (as far as we know, anyway), but we’ll learn very quickly that just because Cassie Lang was able to build a quantum satellite, it doesn’t mean she should have done so. As for The Wizard of Oz, it’s probably no coincidence that the film’s first trailer was accompanied by a remixed version of Elton John’s “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.”

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania will release to theaters on Feb. 17.