Evangeline Lilly’s Wasp has waited an awful long time for her big superhero break – too long, perhaps.
We know Joss Whedon once considered adding her to The Avengers, before ultimately carving out a bigger role for Black Widow. But that’s not the only near-miss from Hope van Dyne’s MCU career; as Evangeline Lilly tells Cinema Blend, her character almost suited up for Captain America: Civil War before the Russos reconsidered.
Essentially, Marvel’s pool of creators wanted to hold fire before introducing Evangeline Lilly’s Wasp, as a character of her stature deserves a full-blown movie arc (see: Ant-Man and the Wasp) rather than some undercooked side story tucked away within one of the MCU’s ensemble films.
Then they said what I thought they were going to say, which is, ‘We really want to dedicate a film to introducing this female superhero, and we don’t want her just to be a side note in this larger story.’ That was so exciting for me.
And the rest is history, really. Because with rumblings that Lilly has already filmed her scenes for Avengers 4, it’s pretty clear that the Wasp will be hanging around the MCU for many more years to come – similar to Captain Marvel, in fact, which is perhaps the reason why Kevin Feige’s confident that the franchise’s female heroes will soon outnumber their male counterparts.
On July 6th, Ant-Man and the Wasp delivers a timely MCU palate cleanser, and if it’s more coverage you’re after, look no further than our review, in which Matt Donato praises the franchise’s 20th installment for its larger-than-life personality.
