Home Movie News Kevin Feige on Kicking Off the MCU’s Phase Five With ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’

“He’d earned that position.”

Image Via Disney

Look out for the little guy, he’s going to do big things to change the fate of the MCU! Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is going to kick off Phase 5 in the grandest way possible. While Thanos only made post-credit scene appearances in the Infinity Saga, the upcoming feature will give us a taste of the big bad Kang the Conqueror front and center. And going up against him is the most unlikely avenger, Ant-Man. In a new interview with Empire Magazine, producer Kevin Feige revealed why the interesting choice was made.

In 2015, Scott Lang, played by Paul Rudd, was introduced in his stand-alone feature directed by Peyton Reed. The light-hearted heist movie did a good job of introducing the character and setting up the universe for quantum travel with Pym particles. He then went on to join Team Cap in Captain America: Civil War, and his next entry saw him lost in the Quantum Realm. By the time Avengers: Endgame arrived, he became instrumental in saving half of the population of the universe.

And it seems like the MCU is ready to give Ant-Man his due credit. “We wanted to kick off Phase Five with Ant-Man because he’d earned that position,” Feige said of starting the phase with Quantumania. “To not simply be the back-up or the comic relief, but to take his position at the front of the podium of the MCU.” And it looks like Scott Lang is going to take some major blows from Kang. The trailers have teased that it’s a fight that’s not going to be easy by any measure since Kang can “re-write existence and shatter timelines.”

Image via Marvel

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“The first discussion we had was, ‘What if Ant-Man is accidentally in an Avengers movie by himself?” teases writer Jeff Loveness. Quantumania still looks like a heist movie, as promotional material sets up the fact that Kang needs something that Scott can get for him, and in return he can give Scott lost “time” with his daughter. As Reed says, “We’re not running around the streets of San Francisco anymore. We’re fighting one of the most powerful villains in Marvel history, and maybe these are the most unlikely Avengers to be the first to go up against this guy.” Though the stakes are high, and Kang is formidable, Ant-Man understands that if he can’t win, at least they both can lose!

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania premieres on February 17. You can check out the trailer below: