20 facts you might not know about 'Ant-Man and the Wasp'

Ant-Man director Peyton Reed and Michael Douglas, who played Hank Pym, said they had an interest in returning for another film. However, there were questions about what the film would be. There was thought it might be a sequel or possibly a prequel, one featuring a young Hank Pym.

Reed joined Ant-Man late, but there would not be turmoil this time. When a sequel to Ant-Man was announced, Reed was attached as the director. He had never done a sequel before but wanted to explore the characters further and get a chance to work on an Ant-Man movie “from the ground up,” given that he joined midstream in the first film.

When the sequel was announced, the title was Ant-Man and the Wasp, making it the first time a female character was in the title of an MCU film. Reed even briefly considered going with “Wasp and the Ant-Man" but recognized that Ant-Man and the Wasp was a phrase known from the comics. Also, it does roll off the tongue better.

When Ant-Man and the Wasp was first written, it was a group effort. Paul Rudd returned as a writer on the film, along with Gabriel Ferrari and Andrew Barrer. Those three have writing credit, but Reed also worked on the screenplay. Reportedly, Adam McKay contributed again, though he did not get credit. At some point, another pass must have been done, as Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers both have credit on the screenplay, meaning this film has five credited writers.

Once it was announced that Michael Pena was returning as Luis, we knew we were in for some fast-talking stories from him. Initially, there was a rambling tale spun by Luis where he recapped what happened in Captain America: Civil War, which would have featured a cameo from Cap. However, realizing the film had enough Civil War references as is, that monologue and cameo were cut.

Reed wanted to move Ant-Man and the Wasp away from being a heist film, instead comparing it to the crime stories of Elmore Leonard, which often have some comedy in the mix. The director also cited films such as After Hours, Midnight Run, and What’s Up, Doc? in terms of the movie's look and feel.

Janet Van Dyne, the original Wasp and Hope’s mother, was going to be brought into the MCU in a real way with Ant-Man and the Wasp. Her rescue from the Quantum Realm is a big part of the plot. That meant somebody needed to be cast as Janet, and Douglas had a suggestion: Catherine Zeta-Jones. Zeta-Jones is a fine actress and an Oscar winner, but Douglas had another reason for his choice. He is married to her.

We see Janet, in her Wasp costume and silent, in Ant-Man . She was played by Hayley Lovitt, who Reed cast because of her “saucer-like, Michelle Pfeiffer eyes," according to The Hollywood Reporter. In Reed’s mind, Pfeiffer was his dream casting. Well, his dream came true. Pfeiffer played Janet, while Lovitt returned as her reference double for the flashback scenes.

Laurence Fishburne plays Bill Foster, and he was happy to do so. While he had played Perry White in the world of DC’s film, he considered himself "a Marvel guy” at heart. For the scenes where Foster appears de-aged, Fishburne had a stand-in that makes sense. His reference double was Langston Fishburne, his son.

Ghost existed in the world of Marvel, but he was an Iron Man villain who never crossed paths with Ant-Man. Yes, we said “he." In the comics, Ghost was always male. They made Ghost a woman in Ant-Man and the Wasp to, in part, further explore father and daughter relationships as a counterpoint to Hank and Hope.

Ghost’s real name is Ava Starr, and she is the daughter of Elihas Starr. In the Marvel comics, Elihas Starr is a villain who goes by the name of Egghead. He’s super smart and bald, thus, he is Egghead. This version of Starr doesn’t seem connected to that villain at all, perhaps because Egghead is also the name of a Batman villain made famous by Vincent Price in the 1960s TV series.

Tom Scharpling, comedy writer and former host of the cult radio show The Best Show, had a small role in Ant-Man that was cut. In Ant-Man and the Wasp, Scharpling and his comedy partner Jon Wurster appear as SUV drivers, so Reed, or somebody, really wanted to show Best Show some love.

The lab and the “Quantum Tunnel” were inspired by the cult classic TV show The Time Tunnel. That set is also notable because it was, to date, the largest set built for any MCU movie.

Rudd got in really good shape for Ant-Man, so much so that his costumes had to be altered to account for his musculature. This time around, Rudd did something else. He learned close-up magic. It was a crash course, so he only really did just enough to be able to do some close-up magic for the movie convincingly.

It tracks that Scott and Cassie would watch Them!, the horror movie about giant ants, at the end of the film. However, while discussing the ideas of the Quantum Realm, Reed remembered that the topic was broached in the comedy Animal House. This led Reed to include a scene of Scott watching that scene from Animal House in the movie.

Goggins’ Sonny Burch does not have much patience with Luis, but Goggins and Pena hopefully got along better in real life. The two had worked together on The Shield, which Goggins co-starred on and Pena spent 10 episodes on. Their characters were, in fact, partners on that show.

Typically, whenever you see a film’s director’s cut, it’s longer than the theatrical cut. Not every director wants to really let a movie breathe. Reed was insistent that Ant-Man and the Wasp come in under two hours. For one, it was coming on the heels of the lengthy Avengers: Infinity War, so he figured a breezier film would be nice. On top of that, Reed realized that since he was making an action comedy, it shouldn’t “overstay its welcome.”

To try and figure out how to explain quantum entanglement, the filmmakers, naturally, turned to the Steve Martin and Lily Tomlin comedy All of Me. In that film, Tomlin’s ghost gets trapped in the body of Martin, which she then shares with Martin’s consciousness. For Ant-Man and the Wasp, they had Janet take over Scott’s body briefly. Initially, Michelle Pfeiffer was going to perform it, and Rudd was going to copy her, but they decided just to let Rudd create the performance out of whole cloth instead.

Ant-Man had the second-lowest opening weekend of any Marvel film save for The Incredible Hulk, but the growth of the MCU and people’s familiarity with Ant-Man as a character likely helped. The movie brought in $75.8 million domestically on its opening weekend, an increase of 33 percent on the first film. When all was said and done, Ant-Man and the Wasp made $216.6 million domestically and $622.7 million worldwide, making it the 11th-highest-grossing movie of 2018.

Not only is there another Ant-Man movie coming, but it also seems like it’s going to be a huge one. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania will feature Kang, played by Jonathan Majors, as the villain. Reed is returning as the director, but this time, the film has one screenwriter Jeff Loveness, who has written some Marvel comics but otherwise had solely worked as a comedy TV writer before Quantumania. He did write on Rick & Morty, though.