While there was plenty of chatter about the Quantum Realm in the first two Ant-Man films, as an audience, we didn’t really get to spend an extended period of time there. That’s all changing in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, though, which looks to be spending most of its screen time in the subatomic dimension, if the film’s title didn’t already give that away.
This meant that the creative forces behind the film had to come up with a distinct look for the primary setting, one the stars can believably pretend they’re in while performing against a blue screen (which was a gripe of Paul Rudd’s while filming).
At Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’s red carpet premiere, director Peyton Reed peeled back the curtain about what he drew inspiration from for the film’s aesthetic:
The director gushed about drawing from multiple difference eras and sources of popular culture, but taking time to shout out 20th Century science fiction and heavy metal magazines, as well as The Wizard of Oz:
“We looked at a lot of stuff – electron microscope photography, heavy metal magazines from the 70s and 80s, there’s a bunch of great artists who did science fiction paperbacks in the 60s and 70s, we looked at that stuff. We sort of borrowed from all of these different things, The Wizard of Oz, many different things.”
If anything, this would further clear up Alice Cooper’s presence at the premiere of the film, besides a potential cameo or OST appearance, or the less obvious link, his past affiliation with Marvel.
In any case, we’re looking forward to seeing the blast-from-the-past aesthetic of the Quantum Realm, as Scott Lang and his companions grapple with time itself (and Kang the Conqueror) when Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania hits theaters on Feb. 17, 2023.