Avengers: Infinity War united every hero who’s part of the MCU… except for Hawkeye and Ant-Man. Sidestepping the thorny issue of where Clint Barton was when the world needed his archery skills, at least it sort of makes sense that Scott Lang wasn’t around, as he does have his own movie coming up in a couple of months.
That being said, Infinity War scribes Stephen McFeely and Christopher Markus have still been asked why Paul Rudd’s little superhero who could wasn’t in the event film. Or if not in the film itself, why not in the post-credits scene? For instance, could they not have chosen to tease Ant-Man and the Wasp rather than Captain Marvel? It’d make sense, as Peyton Reed’s sequel is coming up next, right?
Well, not quite. Yes, it is the next MCU release on the calendar, but as Markus and McFeely explained to Collider in a recent interview, having Scott Lang show up just wouldn’t have worked given the grim and tragic ending of Infinity War.
“When you end it like that, there aren’t too many other places you can go [for a tag scene],” Markus said. “Marvel tags often point to the next movie coming. The next movie is Ant-Man and the Wasp, which is light-hearted – you don’t wanna go, ‘but meanwhile! Paul Rudd is still adorable!”
This follows on from something the writers said the other month, which is that unfortunately, considering the more fun and light nature of Ant-Man, there just wasn’t room for him in what was, overall, a pretty heavy and dark movie.
“Also, Ant-Man the franchise is very light-hearted. It’s fun. It maybe even skews younger. If we were to put Ant-Man in this extremely heavy movie, and then have to say to the guys who are making the Ant-Man movie, “Yeah, he went through hell, but now go ahead and have your little romp and we’ll pick it up afterwards,” that’s why we have to really sort of manage your interconnections and go, “Let’s go and hold off so you can enjoy that without feeling a bad taste in your mouth.”
When you look at it that way, it makes sense why Ant-Man was left out of both Avengers: Infinity War and its post-credits scene. It would have been nice – and useful – to have him included in the fight against Thanos alongside his fellow heroes, but at the end of the day, leaving him on the sidelines until July’s blockbuster was probably the right move.
