The Wizard Of Oz Was A Major Inspiration For Ant-Man 3
If you have a pulse, you're probably familiar with the 1939 fantasy film "The Wizard of Oz." Even if you haven't seen it, you probably know what the Lollipop Guild is, the horse of a different color, the man behind the curtain, the men looking for a heart, a brain, and courage, the flying monkeys, lions, tigers, and bears (oh my!), etc. The number of elements of that film that have become icons of popular culture is almost endless. In fact, according to an article in The Guardian, Italian researchers studying over 47,000 movies on IMDb concluded that "The Wizard of Oz" is the single most influential film of all time. It beats out Hollywood blockbusters from "Star Wars" to "King Kong" to "Casablanca," "Jaws," and "Gone With the Wind." It's hard to downplay the cultural significance of any of those films, but the thorough math backs up "The Wizard of Oz" as the titleholder.
The classic film has come up a surprising number of times in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. To name a few examples, "Werewolf by Night" used one of the most well-known songs from the movie: Judy Garland's (Dorothy) "Over the Rainbow." In "She-Hulk," much like in the classic '30s film, Jennifer Walters (Tatiana Maslany) goes behind the curtain, so to speak, to confront the "K.E.V.I.N." (Knowledge Enhanced Visual Interconnectivity Nexus, a robotic stand-in for Kevin Feige). But in a recent event in preparation for the upcoming chapter of the MCU "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania," the Victor Fleming classic was mentioned by name.
Both films deal with leaving home and entering a supernatural and unworldly realm
Looper attended a press event for "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania," where Marvel Cinematic Universe chief and producer Kevin Feige was asked a little bit about the visuals for the film and what influenced them. Feige spoke about what kinds of inspirations he discussed with the director, Peyton Reed. One of the discussions was around a certain famous fantasy film from 1939. "We talked about parallels to 'Wizard of Oz' in terms of meeting a family down there," he said. Still, Feige deferred a good deal of that question to Reed, who mentioned things like actual images from an electron microscope, "Heavy Metal" magazine from the '70s, and sword and sorcery style fantasy.
It's hardly surprising to find that "The Wizard of Oz" provided some of the influence for the world of the quantum realm. There are parallels to the story with Scott Lang, aka Ant-Man (Paul Rudd), and his family leaving their home and traveling to a world that's not just unusual but also supernatural. It's also especially appropriate that Reed and Feige thought of that film as the song the first "Quantumania" trailer uses is Elton John's classic "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road." Of course, guess where the "Yellow Brick Road" comes from! Even if you've never heard that particular song, if you've ever set foot on the planet Earth, somebody has probably mentioned the phrase "follow the Yellow Brick Road" to you in passing. So it's little wonder such a commonly referenced film came to mind when thinking up this particular story for the "Ant-Man" threequel.