Even more than three years later, fans are still reeling from the lackluster Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania. Not only have fans bristled with the fact that the Ant-Man sequel will likely never be followed up on (seeing as Marvel outright abandoned the Kang the Conqueror story), but in the moment, it was clear that Quantumania was not the super-powered MCU blockbuster that we had all hoped it would be. This disconnect was no more prevalent than in the film's ending. Those closing moments drew plenty of criticism. The film saw almost no major consequences befall its central heroes, after years of rumors that it could spell the end for characters like Paul Rudd's Scott Lang.
According to insider Daniel Richtman, that was not always the plan, though. In a new post on X, Richtman detailed what could have been in the quantum-based adventure, positing that the movie was going to end with Rudd's pint-sized power house (along with Evangeline Lilly's Hope van Dyne) "getting stuck in the Quantum Realm." However, this plan was changed at the last minute, with the movie's final ending being shot just "a few weeks before the movie was released:"
"While he wasn’t going to die, the original ending had Scott and Hope getting stuck in the Quantum Realm. They filmed a new ending just a few weeks before the movie was released. God knows why."
This is not the first time fans have heard about this scrapped ending, as, right around the movie's original release, news of the cut idea made its way online (read more about the Quantumania reshoots here). Scott and Hope getting stuck would have been just the first domino to fall in this altered bit of MCU storytelling, as it would also have seen the young Cassie Lang (played by Kathryn Newton) tasked with saving her dad while the villainous Kang escaped.
Instead, what transpired saw Scott and Team Ant-Man escape the Quantum Realm, defeat the movie's central Kang Variant, and leave no significant lasting impact on the greater Marvel Studios canon.
Why Ant-Man 3's Original Ending Was So Much Better
One of the biggest issues Ant-Man 3's naysayers have with the film is that it ends with the characters in essentially the same place they started.
This was supposed to be the first appetizer to an eventual Kang-led Avengers film, and what fans ultimately got was a forgettable, generic Ant-Man adventure that did little to usher Paul Rudd's Marvel character into a new era.
Fans entered Quantumania wanting to see just how sizable a threat Jonathan Majors' Kang was supposed to be. This wasn't any other Ant-Man movie; this was an Ant-Man movie featuring the next Avengers movie villain. That was a big deal.
Instead, audiences left the theater with a tease toward the future, thanks to the Council of Kangs' post-credits scene, but almost nothing to tell them that Kang was a villain worthy of following the terrifying Thanos.
If Team Ant-Man had fallen to Kang, either killing off a main character or (like Richtman teased) leaving Scott and Hope in the Quantum Realm, it would have upped the stakes for the Marvel story to come.
Yes, that story would have had to undergo sweeping changes, considering all the Kang-related drama that would follow the film. But for that moment, it would have had fans itching to know what comes next.
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