Before Captain America: Civil War sprung forth from the drawing board, Marvel had considered including The Wasp among Joe and Anthony Russo’s superhero ensemble. A move that would have placed Evangeline Lilly alongside her Ant-Man co-star, Paul Rudd.
That’s according to the film’s screenwriters Christopher Markus and Marcus McFeely, who spoke to Collider about the selection process going into Civil War, and why Lilly’s diminutive hero was ultimately left on the cutting room floor.
First up, Markus recounts the period early on in Civil War‘s pre-production when The Wasp fast became a hot-button topic among Marvel’s creative thinkers.
Markus: You know, almost everybody made it in. There was a period where we talked about bringing Wasp in. There was actually a draft Wasp was in because she was so almost on the edge of being in Ant-Man, but then you’re taking something awesome out of the Ant-Man team’s quiver if it’s like, “Well, we’re doing her!” Plus she had a similar skill set, so it’s like “Well, maybe we just isolate it to Scott.”
Bouncing off his co-writer’s thoughts, McFeely added that introducing Lilly’s character in any way that wasn’t organic would have affected her relationship with Scott Lang (Rudd).
McFeely: When you see the movie, you see that Scott is his own comic relief so it would change that a little bit. They would be this pair. Everybody else we would talk about them and then they’d go away, but we got most everybody back.
Captain America: Civil War is barrelling down on its May 6 release date in North America. Over the weekend, Marvel premiered the latest clip for the film during Sunday’s MTV Movie Awards show – and it’s a doozy.
