Kevin Feige Reveals Why Ant-Man 3 Was The Right Film To Launch Phase 5
A new era of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is launching this month as "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania" buzzes into theaters everywhere. As the first film in Phase 5 of the MCU, the movie sees Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) facing off against Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors), marking the first true confrontation fans will see between an Avenger and the multiversal big bad.
Over the course of Phase 4, the MCU introduced new heroes scattered across the universe, from Shang Chi (Simu Liu) to the Eternals, and turned familiar characters like Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) into villains. But with the events of the "Loki" series having culminated in the freeing of Kang variants from across the multiverse, Marvel's biggest, baddest villain is an all-encompassing threat that will need a new Avengers team to take him on. And so the franchise returns to the character of Ant-Man.
Ant-Man has proven himself to be a powerful Avenger many times over, but in a battle of Lang versus Kang, the odds seem stacked against him. However, as explained by Kevin Feige during a press conference Looper attended, that's exactly what made him the perfect character to kick off Phase 5 and face down the Conqueror.
Feige wanted Kang to feel like an impossible threat
During a press conference for "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania" attended by Looper, Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige peeled back the curtain, explaining that the studio wanted not only to return to a familiar set of characters for Kang's first assault against the Avengers, but that they wanted him to feel like an impossible threat for someone like Ant-Man. "Phase 4 was about introducing a lot of new characters to the world. We wanted to kick off Phase 5 with a third film of characters that were already beloved [...] Who better to face off against one of, if not the biggest villain the MCU has ever faced than this family who you might think could not handle it." We've already seen Scott Lang duking it out with Kang in the trailers, and it looks like the fight will get absolutely brutal.
Meanwhile, Janet aka Wasp (Michelle Pfeiffer) will provide the secret knowledge necessary to defeat Kang — or at least this version of him. As it turns out, she's been dealing with the rise of Kang for quite some time, presumably while trapped in the Quantum Realm as seen in "Ant-Man and the Wasp." Feige explained, "We learn, over the course of the movie, that Janet has not only handled it but has been dealing with it for decades."
Exactly how the confrontation will play out remains another mystery of the Quantum Realm until "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania" releases in theaters on February 17.