Despite poor reviews and drop-offs in sales, Marvel’s Phase 5 officially kicked off with Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania‘s theatrical run, for better or for worse. At the end of the day, this is a Marvel movie, so there are always easter eggs. Now we’re finding out there’s one we may not have noticed.
On a recent episode of the Inside Disney podcast, Quantumania executive producer Stephen Broussard went through some of the easter eggs in the film, and one, in particular, everyone may have missed. By “may have missed” we mean you practically need the insight of a Marvel employee along with the eyesight of a bald eagle to catch this one.
Broussard explains it like this: “I’m not sure how many of your listeners will get the reference.” He then goes on to explain that there’s an actor, a writer, and a radio host named Tom Scharpling who’s really good friends with Peyton Reed — the director of the movie.
Scharpling shot a cameo for the first movie but it was left on the cutting room floor. Then, when the sequel came around Scharpling shot another cameo, but alas, that was also cut. When it came time to film the third movie, “it didn’t end up working so he was essentially cut from part three as well.”
It would be enough if that was the end of the story, but this is Marvel so it never is.
“Then late in the process, this individual made it into a blink-and-you-miss-it scene in the Axia Restaurant there, and it’s kinda funny because there’s this whole meta-narrative between Tom and Peyton about how mad Tom is about finally making the movie.”
Regardless, Broussard said, “we broke the curse, right? So … if you follow the behind-the-scenes of the Ant-Man which, admittedly this is all a very deep cut, I know. He’s on the screen and you can see him.”
This small detail is probably not the type of missed easter egg people were hoping for, but beggars can’t be choosers. Broussard also commented on the post-credits scene featuring Loki, revealing that it was shot as a part of Loki season two and not specifically by the Ant-Man team.
“It was made and shot by the wonderful team at Loki season two, and we showed it to Peyton and he got really excited by it, you know he really geeks out on the inside about all the stuff and he was thrilled to include it.”
Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania is in theaters now.