Ant-Man
Scott Edward Harris Lang
Movie · Phase 5
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
2023 · 124 min
Scott has written a memoir, gets recognised in coffee shops and has entirely stopped paying attention, which is how his daughter builds a Quantum Realm transmitter in the basement and pulls the whole…
The Multiverse SagaDisney+46%Released
The story
Scott has written a memoir, gets recognised in coffee shops and has entirely stopped paying attention, which is how his daughter builds a Quantum Realm transmitter in the basement and pulls the whole family in. Janet has not mentioned that she spent thirty years down there and helped a stranded conqueror repair his ship.
Kang the Conqueror was exiled to the Quantum Realm by his own variants for genocide across timelines, and he needs Pym technology to leave. The film is Marvel's attempt to launch a saga-defining villain via a franchise built on heist comedy, and the mismatch is fatal.
Key facts
- Release date
- 17 Feb 2023
- Status
- Released
- Phase
- Phase 5
- Saga
- The Multiverse Saga
- Runtime
- 124 min
- Certificate
- PG-13
- Director
- Peyton Reed
- Writers
- Jeff Loveness
- Streaming
- Disney+
- Timeline placement
- 2026 — after Wakanda Forever, the furthest forward the MCU had gone at the time
Cast
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| Paul Rudd | Scott Lang / Ant-Man |
| Evangeline Lilly | Hope van Dyne / Wasp |
| Jonathan Majors | Kang the Conqueror |
| Michelle Pfeiffer | Janet van Dyne |
| Michael Douglas | Hank Pym |
| Kathryn Newton | Cassie Lang |
| Bill Murray | Lord Krylar |
Characters
Easter eggs
- The mid-credits scene reveals the Council of Kangs at the Citadel at the End of Time, including Immortus, Rama-Tut and Scarlet Centurion in comic-accurate costume.
- The post-credits scene jumps to a 1901 Chicago World's Fair where Victor Timely demonstrates a machine, watched by Loki and Mobius — a direct hand-off to Loki season two.
- M.O.D.O.K. is revealed to be Darren Cross, the villain of the first Ant-Man, kept alive and rebuilt as a floating head with tiny limbs.
- Bill Murray plays Lord Krylar, a genuine Marvel Comics character from the Micronauts-adjacent Quantum Realm lore.
- Cassie's suit and codename position her as Stature, a founding Young Avenger in the comics.
- Kang's chair, armour and time-chair design are lifted from Jack Kirby's Fantastic Four #19 and Avengers #8.
- Janet's thirty-year silence retroactively explains her warnings about time vortexes in the 2018 sequel.
- The 'probability storm' sequence and the Freedom Fighters of the Quantum Realm draw on the comics' Microverse resistance.
Trivia
- It was shot almost entirely on LED volume stages, the largest-scale use of the technology by Marvel at that point, and drew heavy criticism for looking artificial.
- Jonathan Majors' conviction for assault and harassment in April 2024 led Marvel to drop him, forcing a wholesale rewrite of Phase 5 and 6 plans.
- Kathryn Newton replaced Emma Fuhrmann, who had played Cassie in Endgame.
- Corey Stoll returned as M.O.D.O.K. with his face digitally mapped onto the character, and has joked about the indignity.
- Jeff Loveness wrote the script and was subsequently hired for Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, which Marvel later cancelled and replaced with Avengers: Doomsday.
- It opened to $106 million domestically and then fell nearly 70% in its second weekend, the steepest MCU drop at the time.
- Peyton Reed has said the film was intended as the first part of a larger Kang arc that no longer exists.
Box office
- Budget
- $200 million
- Worldwide
- $476.1 million
- Domestic
- $214.5 million
Reviews
Critics
46%
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is stuffed with visual spectacle, but this Marvel adventure struggles to justify its own existence with a story that shrinks under scrutiny.
The MarvelGossips verdict
The film where Marvel's assembly line became visible from space — a weightless CG soup that wastes Michelle Pfeiffer, Bill Murray and a genuinely strong Kang performance. Majors is the only person on screen who seems to think any of it matters. Its lasting legacy is a saga plan that no longer exists.
Related titles
Frequently asked
Is Kang still the MCU's main villain?
No. After Jonathan Majors was dropped in 2024, Marvel scrapped Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and pivoted to Doctor Doom, played by Robert Downey Jr., as the antagonist of Avengers: Doomsday and Secret Wars.
Does Kang die in Quantumania?
This variant, Kang the Conqueror, is apparently killed in the Quantum Realm's power core. The mid-credits Council of Kangs establishes thousands of variants remain, a plot thread Marvel has since abandoned.
Why is Quantumania so poorly reviewed?
At 46% on Rotten Tomatoes it is among the MCU's lowest scores. Critics faulted the volume-stage visuals, an underwritten Quantum Realm and a plot that used a franchise built on small-scale comedy to carry saga-level exposition.
Who is M.O.D.O.K. in the film?
Darren Cross, the Yellowjacket villain from 2015's Ant-Man, who survived shrinking into the Quantum Realm and was rebuilt by Kang as a weapon. Corey Stoll returns in the role.