Paul Rudd explains why ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’ was always going to be different

As Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania continues to shatter box office records following its theatrical debut this week, star Paul Rudd opened up about why he knew the third installment would be different. 

During a recent interview with Digital Spy, Rudd, who portrays the role of Scott Lang (Ant-Man), revealed that the distinction in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania compared to the other movies stemmed from the introduction of Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors). While mentioning his co-star Jonathan Majors’ abilities to bring Kang the Conqueror to life and make the powerful villainous character a relatable person, Rudd said: 

“This is the great thing about great villains, you can understand their point of view. Thanos had that too, he’s psychotic, but I kind of get what he’s saying. Filming those scenes with Jonathan was great. It was such a cool thing because this is the third one and obviously the villain in this one is huge, he is no joke.”

Later in the conversation, the 53-year-old claimed that doing scenes with Majors felt a bit “off balance” because of the constant battle between the characters in the film. Rudd stated:

“Jonathan and the way he plays him, he’s such a great actor and he had his own kind of rhythm and everything felt a little like he was in control, he was rooted and so it felt different, the shooting of the whole thing felt different and it was a little bit off balance because it’s this kind of constant back and forth between Scott and Kang,” 

This isn’t the first time that the “off-balance” between Lang and Kang the Conqueror has been mentioned. Last week, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania‘s director Peyton Reed brought up during a conversation with the Inside Total Film podcast that the sole reason why Lang was Kang the Conqueror’s first opponent was because the superhero would have been the last person that anyone expected.  He said:

“We got excited about the idea of if you introduce Kang, one of the great Marvel villains, into the movies – who is going to be the first Avenger to go up against him? We liked the idea that Scott and Hope were the most unlikely Avengers to go up against him. On paper, it’s an incredibly lopsided encounter. There was dramatic tension in that from the get-go.”

Following the premiere of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania on Feb. 17, IMDb’s Box office mojo reports, the movie has generated over $63 million at the box office so far. This is good for the Ant-Man franchise because upon its release, the film received a 48% on Rotten Tomatoes as it was ultimately bashed by fans. 

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is now playing in theaters.