Black Widow, The Eternals, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings – three of the biggest new IPs joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe during Phase 4.
Put together with big-name sequels in the vein of Captain Marvel 2, Black Panther 2, and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and it makes for quite a tantalizing slate, though you’d be forgiven for wondering why Ant-Man 3 was totally absent from Marvel’s SDCC presentation.
Chances are Kevin Feige and Co. just aren’t ready to announce a bona fide new installment in the Ant-Man series, or the Powers That Be are holding fire until such time as Paul Rudd and Evangeline Lilly have enough time on their hands to film another MCU sequel. Let’s not forget that Rudd has signed up for Ghostbusters 2020, and may not be available until early 2021, while Lilly has two sizeable projects – namely Dreamland and Happy Life – still in the pipeline.
But if a fan email sent to The Weekly Planet (h/t ComicBook.com) is to be believed, Ant-Man 3 may be coming sooner than we think.
Said reader tip alludes to an exchange between Rudd and a fan who allegedly visited the set of Ghostbusters 2020, at which point the Scott Lang actor seemingly revealed that the script for Ant-Man 3 is already finished. Now, before we get too excited, there are some caveats to this claim.
First, there’s no way of knowing whether this exchange actually happened, but even if it did, Rudd apparently backtracked soon after making the initial comment – which can be read as solid proof that the whole ‘Ant-Man 3‘s script is finished’ was, in fact, a joke, or that the fan-favorite MCU star said something he shouldn’t have and is now trying to cover his tracks so he doesn’t get in trouble.
As always, we’ll have to wait and see. There’s clearly a demand for Ant-Man and the Wasp to return, though whether that reunion comes in the form of a third Ant-Man movie, or some MCU crossover event, is another question entirely.