“Ant-Man and Wasp” Director Talks Other Heroes’ Absence

Peyton Reed, director of 2015’s Ant-Man and its upcoming sequel Ant-Man and the Wasp, took some time to explain why none of the other Marvel Cinematic Universe superheroes show up in his films.

Speaking with CinemaBlend to promote the new movie, which comes out on Friday, July 6, he explained “I always envisioned this as a standalone movie. Obviously when you see the movie you’ll see how it ties into the larger universe, but I like that Hope and Scott and Hank are operating in this little corner of the universe.”

He continued, comparing his movie to how it works in the comics. “You have the Avengers doing something here, and Spider-Man is doing something[…]they’ve got their own thing. And then there’s cross-pollination.”

Overall, he added, he wanted to focus on the relationship between main characters Scott Lang/Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) and Janet van Dyne/Wasp (Evangeline Lilly), the latter of whom is only know beginning her superhero career.

The whole MCU concept is built on the idea of its many sub-franchises interacting with each other, though one criticism has been that, as the series goes on, these have become increasingly common. The bane of a shared universe is spending too much time promoting other movies instead of telling the one that fans paid to see, and while Marvel balances this better than the DCEU or Dark Universe have, it’s always a tricky proposition.

Then again, it can work the other way, too: Iron Man 3 was the first MCU entry after the big team up in The Avengers, and some felt it was too disconnected from events outside of Tony Stark’s story. Hopefully, Ant-Man and the Wasp has found the right balance.

This is especially true because it has an important, yet unknown role. It is set before the events of Avengers: Infinity War, but is clearly being released after for some particular purpose. Nearly everyone agrees that it, as well as Captain Marvel, are going to somehow set things up for the fourth Avengers film, possibly involving the Quantum Realm and/or time travel.

All the MCU events are connected, but along the way, Scott and Hope need to have their own story, separate from the other heroes. In a few days fans can see how Reed managed that goal.