According to the film's biggest star, Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania shares similarities with another MCU epic - Thor: Ragnarok.
The Paul Rudd-led Marvel Studios epic is mere weeks away from its debut and much is being made about how different this Ant-Man film is.
While Ant-Man and Ant-Man and The Wasp were played as straight comedies (something that undoubtedly influenced Ragnarok's drastic tonal shift for Thor), Ant-Man 3 has been teased as being a "hard left turn" for the Ant-Man franchise, coming off "a little darker" than the previous two films.
But if Ant-Man 3 is leaving the comedy in the rear-view how could it be influenced by one of the MCU's funniest movies? Well, Paul Rudd says it is.
Ant-Man 3 Taking Notes from Thor 3
Speaking with Empire Magazine, Paul Rudd revealed Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania was very much influenced by Thor: Ragnarok.
The renowned actor said that with Quantumania the team looked at what they did with Ragnarok and saw "something appealing about doing something unexpected:"
“I really didn’t have time to do it, but we kept talking during the process. I kept thinking about 'Thor: Ragnarok,' where it was like, ‘Whoa, we can’t believe this is the third one, it seems so different.’ There was something appealing about doing something unexpected.”
Director Peyton Reed noted that they "wanted to really pivot into something on a much larger canvas" for the upcoming threequel:
”We wanted to really pivot into something on a much larger canvas. And also that went darker than you might expect.”
With writer on the film Jeff Loveness comparing the whole thing to an Avengers film:
“The first discussions we had was, ‘What if Ant-Man is accidentally in an Avengers movie by himself?’”
Rudd's Ant-Man co-star Michael Douglas remarked that he could tell this was a tonal shift for the franchise because of "how beat up [Rudd would be]" at the end of each day shooting:
“I’d see Paul at the end of the day, how beat up he was, how sore he was. There’s a tougher tone on this one.”
Changing the MCU Formula One Movie at a Time
It is really something to see that after 30 films and a number of streaming series, the MCU is still as open to change as it is. Ragnarok was a turning point for the franchise, showing that just because a hero or individual franchise within the MCU was one thing, it does not always have to be.
Peyton Reed and the Ant-Man 3 team could have rested on their laurels and created yet another Edgar Wright-esque comedy for Quantumania, but they didn't.
Instead, they opted to create something bigger. Something worthy of Kang the Conqueror's introduction. An Avengers 4.5 of sorts.
These most recent quotes continue a trend of the names behind the film pushing its "dark and difficult" narrative.
That is not to say that the Ant-Fam's latest adventure will be devoid of any laughs. The MCU blockbuster still features the talents of comedy legends like Bill Murray after all.
But fans can expect a film that will push the boundaries of the Ant-Man formula more than it ever has before.
Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania hits theaters on Friday, February 17.
