One glance at the Marvel calendar tells us that Ant-Man and the Wasp is next to fall off the production line…but there’s a twist.
Rather than continue where Infinity War left off – that job belongs to the so-far untitled Avengers 4 – Peyton Reed’s pint-sized sequel rolls back the years to focus on the immediate aftermath of Captain America: Civil War, at a time when Scott Lang’s placed under house arrest for his decision to side with Team Cap.
So by the time Ant-Man and the Wasp kicks off, it appears as though the events of Marvel’s latest release will actually run in tandem with Infinity War – or, failing that, take place just before – leading many to assume that the sequel has more ties to Avengers 4 than we’ve been led to believe.
Whatever the case, while chatting to Cinema Blend, director Peyton Reed outlined the ways in which his Ant-Man sequel bridges the gap between Civil War and Marvel’s Infinity War.
We definitely had to deal with the ramifications post-[Captain America:] Civil War. That was crucial to Scott, and crucial to Hope. I mean, it really is fundamental in the jumping off point about what’s going between the two of them at the start of this movie. Outside of that, what I’m really happy about is we’re free to tell sort of our freestanding story.
Reed continued by stressing that, despite its shared DNA, the actual plot driving Ant-Man and the Wasp is totally different from the apocalyptic action of Avengers: Infinity War.
Once we establish that as the leaping off point, [Ant-Man and The Wasp] is going on over here, with huge personal stakes, and huge other stakes that are really separate of what’s going on with [Avengers:] Infinity War. So that, again, is something that was really, really appealing to me, is to not have to… we have enough stuff to track in this movie without having to sort of keep abreast of what’s going on in that.
Ant-Man and the Wasp opens big on July 6th, and it may well be hiding a super-secret cameo from a renown Marvel villain…