When it comes to the overall direction and overarching narratives of the MCU, Ant-Man and the Wasp is often regarded as one of the franchise’s less consequential entries, but as Michael Douglas let slip in an interview last year, the Quantum Realm that’s explored in the film will prove “integral” in the upcoming Avengers: Endgame, and is even looking likely to play an important role in Marvel’s Phase 4. So if we’re going to be spending a fair amount of time in this mysterious place, it may help to know a little about the logic of the micro-verse and the sort of activity we can expect to find there.
In an interview with Collider, director Peyton Reed provided some insight on the nature of the Quantum Realm, observing how it’s a lot more than just a barren and nearly inhospitable wasteland.
“Janet Van Dyne is clearly not wearing her Wasp suit down there. There are little vestiges and pieces of it she’s taken from her suit thirty years later, but she has this spear things and these other items that feel like it’s from some sort of culture. There’s something going down. It’s not just some wasteland.
Reed went on to reference the oft-scrutinized shot of what appears to be a city in the Quantum Realm, teasing that “there might be some sort of civilization down there.” The director also remarked that Janet had a means of nourishment while she was trapped in this place, and was changed by her environment over time.
“There’s definitely a specific backstory to what Janet Van Dyne has been doing the past thirty years… There’s some great food down there, guys. The food scene in the Quantum Realm is not to be believed (laughs). For the breathing, Janet makes the point that her time down there has not just been adaptation. It’s also been evolution, and maybe she’s evolved as a being. So when she’s first down there, it’s easy to imagine she survived from her suit, but perhaps things have happened from her time down there where she’s adapted and possibly even evolved.”
The filmmaker stopped short of explaining how any of this will factor into the events of the Avengers: Infinity War sequel, but seeing how Ant-Man and the Wasp ended with Scott Lang trapped in the Quantum Realm, there’s a good chance that the upcoming film will explore the “culture” that Reed teases.
In any case, the Avengers: Endgame trailer already showed us that Ant-Man makes it out of the micro-verse somehow, but we’ll find out what he discovers beforehand when the film hits theaters on April 26th, 2019.