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How That ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp’ Mid-Credit Scene Came to Be

*This post contains spoilers for Ant-Man and the Wasp*

With the ripples of Infinity War still fresh in everyone’s minds, Ant-Man and the Wasp had a lot of pressure to answer some questions, seeing as it was the first Marvel film to hit theaters after. While the film itself didn’t really touch much on Infinity War (it did bring up the events of Civil War and explained An-Man’s IW absence), the shocking mid-credit scene did provide more than enough for fans to theorize over until Avengers 4.

Image result for ant man quantum realm gif

The scene found Scott heading into the Quantum Realm, with Hope, Hank, and Janet all on a rooftop somewhere in the city. As he’s communicating with the three of them, he loses contact and the camera pans back over to reveal that all of them had fallen victim to Thanos’ Infinity War snap that wiped out half of humanity (and definitely some pets). Their disintegration leaves Scott stuck in the Quantum Realm, presumably putting him in a vital position for Avengers 4, but the big reveal was still quite a shock in theaters everywhere.

[row]“The thing that really appealed to us, was because it was a thing the whole way through of how are we going to deal with this issue Infinity War, and it occurred to us we were going to do it in an Ant-Man and the Wasp way. Which was to tell our story, make it self-contained, and make the ending of the movie with everything wrapped up in such a neat bow at the end of the movie,” Ant-Man and the Wasp director Peyton Reed recently told Uproxx.[/row]

If you recall, the movie ended pretty positively for both Scott, who was taken off house arrest and Hope, who saw her family reunited. While fans may have been initially expecting some sort of tragic ending, Reed knew all along that he wanted to use the mid-credit scene to be that gut-punch for the audience who thought they were getting out scot-free.

How That 'Ant-Man and the Wasp' Mid-Credit Scene Came to Be
Marvel

[row]

“The mission at hand, Scott Lang being on house arrest and seeing his daughter, the X-Con guys landing the big fish and getting their company saved, Hank and Janet reunited – it’s all The Partridge Family, the neatest possible bow of all time. And then we go into a colorful credit sequence. And then do this scene that would hopefully punch the audience in the gut.

And even in the scene, we introduce all of these elements all at once to the audience. It’s like, oh, this is the first time I’ve seen Janet in street clothes. And they are in a parking lot? And there’s Luis’ van? And Scott in the suit and he’s going to the quantum realm in a shrunken tunnel? So everyone’s mind is on trying to make sense of the stuff at hand so that hopefully the thing we were ultimately doing wasn’t immediately occurring to them.”

[/row]

How That 'Ant-Man and the Wasp' Mid-Credit Scene Came to Be
Marvel

It really wasn’t a question as to “if” Ant-Man would tie-in Infinity War, it was more “how”. Infinity War was too big of a game-changer for the franchise for it to just be ignored in the subsequent MCU film, and not to mention, Reed needed to set a timeline for Ant-Man and the Wasp as well.

[row]“I think everybody in the back of their minds’ are like, ‘okay, they can’t ignore it, they can’t ignore it.’ What’s going to happen and who is it going to happen to? So we wanted to just have fun with that. And for me, you’re not going to do the event in a bigger way than Infinity War did it. It had to be its own different tone and it had to be specific to our movie.”[/row]

Meaning…he didn’t want people to feel that same anguish they felt watching Peter Parker vanish in Infinity War. 

[row]“Oh God, when I first saw that moment in Infinity War – in an early cut where the effects weren’t done; I think they were still grayscale effects – it killed me. It was like Saving Private Ryan stuff. It’s like, oh my god, the extended Peter Parker moment was fantastic. I love it. So we don’t bask in it the way they did.”[/row]

Having Hank, Hope, and Janet all disappear off camera was a great choice by Reed as it kept on par with the film’s lighter tone and kept us focused on Scott, who is again, stuck in the Quantum Realm and abruptly loses communication with the people who are going to help him get out. The stakes have never been higher for all of the MCU heroes, but all will be answered, including the fate of the Ant-Man crew when Avengers 4 hits theaters May 3, 2019.

Source: Comicbook.com