According to Jeff Loveness, the writer behind Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania, Hank Pym was almost set to make his final MCU appearance in the most recent Marvel Studios fare.
Pym actually had quite a lot to do in his third MCU outing. He somehow even managed to keep ants relevant in a story where one would think they’d have no place.
But would he come back for a fourth go?
According to the man behind the original Ant-Man, Michael Douglas recently admitted, he’d be up for another bout, so “long as [Hank Pym] could die.”
Hank Pym Almost Died
In a new interview with Backstory Magazine, Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania writer Jeff Loveness revealed that at one point, Michael Douglas’ character was going to meet his end by the time the franchise’s third film rolled its credits.
Not only were they “going to kill Hank at one point,” but the character’s “consciousness was going to live on through the ants:”
"We were going to kill Hank at one point, and I was going to have him be, like, reanimated. His consciousness was going to live on through the ants, and he was going to be like mentally controlling them. Yeah, he was going to be almost like this hive mind of the ants, and I like that... that didn't go too far."
Another cut sequence would have been “a psychological sequence” in Paul Rudd’s probability storm scene that would have included “a Cronenberg The Fly-like Ant:”
"There was a psychological sequence in that probability storm, or that quantum nexus, there was more of a dream sequence element to it. I had like a big, like man-sized ant that was going to be almost like a ninja turtle, the way they looked in that 90s movie, not CGI, make it almost like a Cronenberg ‘The Fly’-like Ant. And it was like in his head. I wanted it to be voiced by Werner Herzog and give it some sort of Holy Mountain kind of advice, some Vision Quest thing. That didn't get in."
Was Pym's Death a Good or Bad Idea?
Like any movie, there will always be ideas that don’t make the cut. But, when it comes to these tidbits for Hank Pym, it’s probably best they never made it into the threequel.
Fans weren’t too keen on many parts of Quantumania, so it’s hard to see audiences reacting too well to an undead Hank Pym hive-mind. But his army of ants was pretty great, at the very least.
Loveness previously revealed that big deaths were considered for Kang's big entrance, but they opted to avoid "copying the Thanos approach."
It seems that Paul Rudd’s recent adventure had a lot taken out of it.
At one point and time, Michelle Pfeiffers’ Janet Van Dyne once demonstrated some additional superpowers in her confrontation with Kang. Even Jonathan Majors’ big bad had far more backstory in the movie, which never made it to the final cut.
While Pym’s undead consciousness and a human-sized ant won’t ever be seen, hopefully, fans will get some fun deleted scenes when the project releases on home media.
Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania is now playing in theaters worldwide.
