Ant-Man And The Wasp Director Knows He Can't 'Out-Depress' The Ending Of Infinity War

Having to follow the game-changing events of Avengers: Infinity War sounds like a daunting task for any filmmaker, although for Peyton Reed it's a familiar challenge. Immediately considering that, Ant-Man and the Wasp is the second time that Marvel's tiniest heroes have had to follow those pesky Avengers at the box office. This time around, yet, Reed has a 'deadly weapon' in Evangeline Lilly's Wasp — the Marvel Cinematic Universe's first female title superhero character.


So, how do you advance your characters and their individual arcs while reconciling with the aftermath of Infinity War? MTV News discussed to Reed about his 'faster, funnier' approach to Ant-Man and the Wasp (his first sequel), Lilly's impact on the Wasp, and why he convinced a screen icon like Michelle Pfeiffer to join the MCU.


MTV News: Kevin Feige and Marvel are really intentional about their scheduling, so what was your reaction any time whenever you noticed out Ant-Man and the Wasp would directly follow the superhero spectacle of Infinity War?


Peyton Reed: I loved it because it exactly mirrored what happened to us three years prior with the opening Ant-Man any time we followed Age of Ultron. Maybe it's a little bit counterintuitive, yet for me it clearly delineates us from them because there's no version where Ant-Man or Ant-Man and the Wasp are going to try and top the epic scale of either Age of Ultron or Infinity War. And we didn't set out to do that. It's a very different scale and tone of a movie.


I actually sort of like it because it reminds people — the second time around, especially — that this is a palate cleanser. It's a more intimate story of the Pym and Van Dyne family member.


MTV News: It also injects a dose of much-needed levity into MCU after the ending of Infinity War.


Reed: We know that in any version of Ant-Man and the Wasp that we're not going to out-depress the ending of Infinity War.


MTV News: In a bizarre way, it also added a little bit of mystique to Ant-Man and the Wasp. Crowds are going hope to be able to see this film because it is the initial Marvel film to be released soon after Infinity War, even if it technically takes place during those events.


Reed: I routinely knew what the ending of Infinity War was any time we were making this movie, however right now that Infinity War is out and people have had a chance to be able to see it and react to it, it certainly changes the dialogue of our movie in a cool way. We knew that we were going to deal with the events of Infinity War at some point in our movie, although we weren't exactly sure how.


first we were going to don't think about it altogether. Then we were going to seed in little things in the background of the movie that began to clue crowds in about where our movie took place in the timeline. However any time we finally came up with the foundation that's in the movie right now, it struck us because the most impactful way to go because it permits our story to be our story — and then deal with the events of Infinity War in a very specific, Ant-Man and the Wasp-way of doing it.


MTV News: What was your priority going into Ant-Man and the Wasp?


Reed: As a director, I had never done a sequel before. So I approached it as a moviegoer. The largest thing was being true to the tone and characters from the initial movie yet progressing those characters in natural and surprising ways. With the origin stuff beyond us, we were able to exhibit Wasp as this totally formed hero. I also knew that we clearly set things in motion in the opening movie, particularly associated with the Quantum Realm and Hope Van Dyne, that we were excited to deal with in this movie.


And the idea of changing up the dynamics. In the initial movie, Hope and her father Hank are at odds for an excellent deal of the movie, and here they work with each other as this badass, scientific superhero team. Meanwhile, Scott and Hope begin from a place where they're estranged from each other and circumstances bring them back with each other. I also wanted to try and make it funnier and faster paced and really go nuts with the Pym technology and the way that we used it.


MTV News: The pacing is really key to its success. The complete film takes place over the course of two days. So how did you approach its pace?


Reed: On the initial Ant-Man, I had this rule: This movie has to be under two hours long. I had that same rule for Ant-Man and the Wasp. It's comedy, and also a comedy should not overstay its welcome. This thing needed to move like a bullet train because it's still in the crime genre, and there's this ticking clock, a finite quantity of time in which the story takes place. Movies that were an influence to us in that regard were Midnight Run, the Robert De Niro movie; After Hours, the Scorsese movie; and Seven Chances, the Buster Keaton movie.


Seven Chances is a silent movie, however in terms of comedic action, it has one of the funniest chase scenes that's ever been devoted to film. It's all about this ticking clock, nevertheless it's constantly funny. So those movies with a frenetic pace were big influences on Ant-Man and the Wasp for me.


MTV News: And, obviously, Garage Musical group. That was an influence as well. Scott's become very good at it while on residence arrest.


Reed: Yes! Very, very good. Segment of the fun was figuring out all the dumb things that Scott Lang would be doing to pass the time. There's stuff we shot that didn't make it into the movie. However that felt like Paul Rudd's sweet spot, also. Take the fact that he's been studying close-up magic. It's a silly thing he does to entertain Cassie, and then it has a payoff at the end of the movie.


MTV News: What was something that didn't make the final cut?


Reed: There's a couple scenes. One of these ended up in a TV spot, where he's just sitting next to a fan saying weird things and making noises into it like a little bit kid does. There were weird versions of him working out. In these superhero movies, there's routinely a working-out montage, so we did a riff on that.


MTV News: At the end of Ant-Man, Hope looks at the Wasp suit and says, "It's about damn time." The Wasp is the opening female title superhero character in the MCU, and she really is the star of this movie. What responsibility did you feel to do this iconic character justice?


Reed: I felt good responsibility along with a tremendous quantity of excitement to be the person who was able to bring Wasp to the screen. In terms of the legacy of that character and Janet Van Dyne, there really are a lot of people who know the MCU movies although don't know the comics so well. Some people get shocked any time whenever you remind them that on the cover of Avengers #1, Ant-Man and Wasp — Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne — are there. And Janet was the one who named the Avengers. She's segment of the Mount Rushmore of Marvel Comics characters. So whenever it came time to do our movie's versions of these characters, yeah, I took it really seriously.


I had a really deadly weapon in my arsenal with Evangeline Lilly. Evangeline was really clear from the get-go about what she wanted to do and what she didn't hope to do. She wanted this hero to feel very practical. She wanted to sweat if she fought, and she wanted to have her hair in a very practical ponytail so it wouldn't get caught in things. It really annoys her in action movies any time girls are in one giant sequence and their hair and nails are brilliant and cute. She wanted it to have a very down-and-dirty feel to it.


MTV News: I love that she is a more competent superhero than Scott.


Reed: I would never describe Ant-Man and the Wasp as a romantic comedy, however there really are definitely these ideas in terms of the Scott-Hope character arc. That was key for me because you don't visualize that that much in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and it's key to that partnership.


In the initial movie, she's the face of this corporate enterprise, Pym Technologies, and she's on the indoor attempting to infiltrate and pull off this heist. She's also a darker character in the opening movie. Evangeline was playing the long con. She had in her mind how she wanted this character to evolve if we were fortunate enough to create countless Ant-Man and the Wasp movies. She has a strong point of view about it.


MTV News: Speaking to the other Wasp in this film, I know you met with Michelle Pfeiffer to sell her on the idea being piece of the MCU. Did you have got to do much convincing?


Reed: Just the two of us met in a conference room up at Marvel. And Marvel being Marvel, I couldn't just hand her a script. So I had to lay out, Luis-style, the whole history of the Marvel Cinematic Universe — yet with respect to Janet Van Dyne and who that character was in the comics, who that character was to me, and what our movie's version was going to be. There's also a little bit of reinvention because we were going to be able to see Janet in her heyday and visualize what she was like right after 30 years in the Quantum Realm. I attempted to shield her from as much technical nonsense as I may.


She is the star of some of my main go to movies of all time — Married to the Mob, The Fabulous Baker Boys. She's just amazing.


MTV News: I will usually be an enormous defender of Grease 2.


Reed: As a Grease 2 fan, you might love knowing that as soon as we were going to announce Michelle as piece of our cast, we put with each other this thing for Comic-Con. It was Paul Rudd and Michael Peña directly addressing the audience and getting them caught up on the MCU. However they're not talking to the audience; they're talking to Michelle Pfeiffer, attempting to convince her to be in this movie. As we were shooting it, Paul was doing his common riffing and referencing films from her past, and at one point he just begins singing "Cool Rider" from Grease 2. It was astonishing.


I went back and rewatched a whole bunch of Michelle's stuff, and I had not seen Grease 2 since it came out. Whichever you think of Grease 2, she's phenomenal in that movie. To be an actor, front and center, following up the movie Grease had to be a tough thing. She goes in there, and she's so confident in that movie, and also you can't take your eyes off her.


MTV News: Ant-Man and the Wasp was your first sequel. I might ask in case you can visualize yourself directing another one, nevertheless I'm more curious about whether you can ever visualize anyone else direct a Ant-Man movie. Or do you've got to be the one to finish Scott's story?


Reed: The reason I did this sequel was because I really did fall in love with these characters. I do feel ownership over them. As soon as Paul went off to do Civil War, I had proper envy. I would call him and ask how it was going over there, and he'd mention, "Oh man! I'm doing a scene with Captain America. Right now I finally feel like a Marvel hero." It's like, you didn't feel like a Marvel hero before? Right now that you're with the Russo Brothers you feel that? I really had this thing where I felt like my friend was off playing with somebody else... Who understands if there's going to be another [Ant-Man], however I'd love to do it.


Ant-Man and the Wasp is currently in theaters. For more on the superhero flick, watch our interview with Lilly below: