Ant-Man Quantumania

How does Paul Rudd's new Marvel movie set up Kang, MODOK and phase 5 of the MCU?

In the meantime, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. And indeed, it turns out Kang the exile may have been the one person who stood against the combined might of his multiple selves. Hope spent most of the movie trailing around after Janet trying to get her mom to explain this whole quantum realm deal, and aside from a bit of fighting is criminally under-used. That led to a showdown with Scott in Cassie's bedroom when the poor kid was just six. In the real world, of course, foreign policy decisions about "regime change" in other lands are rarely so straightforward. He and Kang throw down in a brutal final punch-up that leaves Scott bloodied and bruised. To stop him, Cassie gives an impassioned speech to the downtrodden people of the quantum realm, who rise up against Kang. So she's none too happy when the whole family is sucked in and shrunk down, lost in the quantum realm and facing the chillingly soft-spoken dictator Kang (Jonathan Majors). Janet is horrified when her husband Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) helps Cassie sends a signal to the quantum realm, a plane of reality teenier than an atom. The insurgents are reinforced by an army of high-tech ants who evolved from Hank's experiments thanks to time fast-forwarding. [Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania](/culture/entertainment/ant-man-and-the-wasp-quantumania-review-a-breezy-bizarro-mcu-blunder/) is more than the latest Marvel movie. But how does the end of the movie set up this new beginning for the MCU, in movies on the big screen and TV shows on [Disney Plus](/tech/services-and-software/when-will-ant-man-quantumania-stream-on-disney-plus-not-soon-sorry/)?

The superhero sequel is currently playing in such major territories as Mexico, South Korea, Germany, Brazil and Australia. It debuts in China on Friday. Paul ...

One of the biggest draws of “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” is Jonathan Majors’ supervillain Kang the Conqueror. The original “Ant-Man” in 2015 debuted to just $57 million domestically after earning $6.4 million in Thursday previews. The biggest problem for the film may be word of mouth. Internationally, “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” has opened in more than 40 international markets, earning an estimated $23.8 million in its first two days of release. Critics haven’t been kind to “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” handing it a 49% “rotten” rating on Rotten Tomatoes, a low mark for Marvel. [Paul Rudd](https://variety.com/t/paul-rudd/)’s latest Marvel adventure is expected to bring in $95 million to $100 million domestically in its opening weekend.

How Marvel created the “dizzying” and “bonkers” Quantum Realm in the new sequel.

“It allowed us to create a wide and varied world.” The plot easily adjusted to embrace such a disparate mishmash. “He’d conquered their people, and maybe they were the last survivors, and they’ve all banded together to resist.” And there’s oppression down there.” The oppression comes courtesy of That was, conceptually, the kind of bonkers idea.” “It had to feel different than outer space in Guardians of the Galaxy or Asgard in the Thor movies. And what’s the history of this?

'Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,' starring Paul Rudd and Evangeline Lilly, is opening in movie theaters over the long Presidents Day weekend.

Ant-Man 3 is making a huge 3D push following the success of Avatar: The Way of Water and, more recently, a 3D remastered edition of Titanic. The preview earnings for the two films were $6 million and $12 million, respectively. Overseas, the movie looks to start off with anywhere from $130 million to $190 million after starting off with a two-day gross of $23.8 million from its first 43 markets. Black Panther remains the crownholder with $242.2 million followed by Deadpool with $152.2 million and Fifty Shades of Grey ($93 million), not adjusted for inflation. The $110 million estimate for Quantumania includes a three-day gross of $95 million. The cast also includes Michael Douglas, Michelle Pfeiffer, Jonathan Majors, Kathryn Newton, Bill Murray, Katy O’Brian, William Jackson Harper, James Cutler and David Dastmalchian. Preview grosses aren’t always reflective of how a movie will play out, since some releases can be more front loaded than others. [Ant-Man and the Wasp](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/t/ant-man-wasp/) (87 percent). [Ant-Man](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/t/ant-man/) 3 reunites director Peyton Reed with actors [Paul Rudd](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/ant-man-has-paul-rudds-most-challenging-scene-1235322344/) and [Evangeline Lilly](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/ant-man-and-the-wasp-quantumania-evangeline-lilly-1235328077/). 2, which debuted to $147 million over the May 5-7 weekend in 2017. [Marvel Studios](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/t/marvel-studios/) threequel is [tracking to collect at a franchise-best $110 million](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/ant-man-wasp-quantumania-box-office-presidents-day-1235325902/) over the four-day Presidents Day frame (Friday-Monday) to score one of the top showings for the holiday. 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The Marvel Cinematic Universe film is headed for a $100 million opening. It's the MCU movie debut of Jonathan Majors' Kang the Conqueror, the next overarching ...

"Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. "Quantumania" is one of only two MCU films to generate a "rotten" rating on the review aggregator. Disney also announced Friday that it is postponing the release of "The Marvels," a film centered on Captain Marvel, Ms. The film had previous been set to debut on July 28. "Quantumania's" Thursday numbers are on pace with 2017's "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. Hype surrounding the big screen debut of Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors) is likely to help drive foot traffic to theaters this weekend.

Marvel's Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, the third entry in the Ant-Man franchise, stars Paul Rudd, Jonathan Majors, Evangeline Lilly, Michelle Pfeiffer, ...

(It’s funny the first two times it eagerly says “holes,” but eventually you start to live in fear of another “holes” line.) The problem isn’t that such bits aren’t funny — they sometimes are — but that they reveal a noxious carelessness beneath the slipshod filmmaking. But it’s all executed with such little commitment (by otherwise talented actors) that the end result is numb alienation, which is probably not a thing you’re supposed to want from a superhero flick. At a time when MCU films seemed to be leaning further toward overarching story lines and portentous mythology (all in an effort to build up to the final Avengers pictures, at least one of which was terrific), it came like a breath of fresh air. The first Ant-Man, one of the high points of the whole Marvel cinematic project, was distinguished by its goofy humor and smaller-scale story. More importantly, it fails to make you feel anything, which is odd since part of the story involves Ant-Man’s desperate attempts to save his daughter, as ostensibly relatable and immediate a character motivation as one can imagine. You keep waiting for the menace or the grandiosity or the vengefulness to ratchet up — we’re told that Kang is a terrifying, nearly omnipotent being who needs to be prevented from ever escaping the Quantum Realm, lest he destroy the universe — but aside from a few unconvincing, late-inning battle sequences, there really doesn’t seem to be much to Kang. Quantumania makes you appreciate even more the achievement of something like the Avatar films. What does any of this have to do with Ant-Man or the Wasp (Evangeline Lilly)? Within what feels like the first 15 or so minutes of the movie, our heroes wind up getting sucked into the Quantum Realm (alongside Janet and her husband Hank Pym, played again by Michael Douglas) when Scott’s daughter Cassie (Kathryn Newton) begins sending signals into this world in an effort to map it. Now, she reveals that she wasn’t alone down there — that a whole universe of beings exists in the Quantum Realm, elaborate and diverse alien tribes in seemingly constant conflict. Maybe director Peyton Reed and his collaborators thought they were making a Star Wars movie; the protagonists’ adventures in the Quantum Realm at times look like they were meant to be a knockoff version of George Lucas’s space operas, albeit in compressed form. Save for a relatively brief, breezy opening section set in the Marvel present, where Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) has written a memoir about his eventful life as Ant-Man and his experiences saving the world in the wake of the Thanos Snap and the ensuing battles, the vast majority of Quantumania takes place in the Quantum Realm, that deadly microworld that you fall into if you shrink so much that you find yourself slipping between subatomic particles.

Paul Rudd, Jonathan Majors, Kevin Feige, and director Peyton Reed give the lowdown on the movie that kicks off Phase Five in Marvel's cinematic universe.

This subatomic world has all this stuff going on in the fabric of spacetime outside of space and time but in the quantum realm.” “In terms of the Ant-Man trilogy, there is a flashback in the first film to the Wasp, the original Wasp, Janet van Dyne, but we don't see her face. “Many great artists would paint the covers for these things, and they would be on a newsstand, and that cover had to grab you, and many of them were creating these bizarre worlds. The first Ant-Man movie was mainly about meeting the characters and the origin story, but we got a taste of it at the very end, which is what led to where we took it in Endgame.” The culture of the play and the story is all there, but it's really changing, so you really have to be very clear about what it is you're doing and who your character is, what he's about, what she's about, what they're going after, and the rest of it, you play hard. The look was in the works for three and a half years.” The theme of family is a constant in the movies.” The quick answer is that Kang is a time-traveling supervillain who is also a nexus being, leading to this idea of variants. “When we start this movie, it is the present day, and the events of Endgame have already transpired. Things act very differently at the quantum level, and Paul talked about the amount of storytelling, imagination, and fun you could have there. In Quantumania, one of the things we've done is broaden that story and start talking about the secrets the family members keep from each other.” Now, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania lands in theaters and is expected to dominate Presidents Day weekend.

Jonathan Majors is Kang the Conqueror, the new Thanos-level big bad in the Marvel Cinematic Universe; we get our first good look at him in “Ant-Man and the Wasp ...

Mobius (likely a reference to a [Möbius strip](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-timeless-journey-of-the-moebius-strip/), not [Michael Morbius](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2022-04-01/morbius-sony-marvel-vampires-dark-multiverse-reactions), played here by [Owen Wilson](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-jul-29-et-quick29.3-story.html)) show up in 1901 to see a presentation by the inventor [Victor Timely](https://www.marvel.com/characters/victor-timely). That Moon Knight, by the way, later turned out to be [Ravonna Renslayer](https://screenrant.com/moon-knight-kang-conqueror-ravonna-renslayer-mcu-comics/), who became very close to Kang; in the Disney+ “Loki” series, she’s a Time Variance Authority big shot played by [Gugu Mbatha-Raw](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/tv/story/2020-06-22/the-morning-show-apple-gugu-mbatha-raw-cant-stop-watching). 19](https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Fantastic_Four_Vol_1_19) (1963) — but to heroes including [Moon Knight](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/tv/story/2022-04-20/moon-knight-episodes-marvel-oscar-isaac-guide). Kangs that seems to include [Pharoah Rama-Tut](https://www.cbr.com/fantastic-four-rama-tut-kang-variant/), one of the best known versions of [Nathaniel Richards](https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Nathaniel_Richards_(Earth-616)), the man who eventually becomes Kang (yes, Richards, as in [Reed Richards](https://www.google.com/search?q=reed+richards+death+dr+strange&oq=reed+richards+death&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0i512l2j0i22i30i625l7.11047j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:e8b36286,vid:C0BftRcUJKs) of the [Fantastic Four](https://www.marvel.com/teams-and-groups/fantastic-four), but that’s a long story for another, you know, time). In the Disney+ “Moon Knight” TV series, a [design on the back of the jacket](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWyxNAQ59HA) of a briefly appearing henchman has been speculated to be a Rama-Tut reference — it seems to be a drawing of his distinctive headpiece with splashes of color suggesting Kang’s teal-and-purple scheme. [Council of Kangs](https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Council_of_Kangs_(Multiverse)) (all played by [Jonathan Majors](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/awards/story/2021-06-09/lovecraft-country-jonathan-majors-da-5-bloods)). After all, Marvel has announced the next Avengers movie, scheduled for a May 2025 release, is called “ [The Kang Dynasty](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2022-07-23/marvel-studios-hall-h-panel-comic-con-news).” (By the way, why not shorten his name to “Kanqueror”? Kang-Prime, the man who would be King of Kangs, joined with a couple of his variants (variants are a whole thing in Marvel; see “Loki” Season 1 for a primer about these alternate versions of characters) to go around timelines killing their selves, or, rather, the variants they deemed useless or embarrassing by their Kangaroo court. Rama-Tut, for instance, has extensive connections to not only the Fantastic Four — after all, his first appearance was in [Council of Cross-Time Kangs](https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Council_of_Cross-Time_Kangs_(Multiverse)) (which sounds a little like the Originals renaming themselves [the New Originals](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PROS7aKoZuY)), with a much larger membership — essentially, any Kang who had killed another Kang. [Kang the Conqueror](https://www.marvel.com/characters/kang/in-comics) being conquered himself in “Quantumania,” which he must have found mortifying, we’d be seeing more of him. Come on, that’s kind of hilarious: Their raison d'être is finding Problematic Kang or Kang With a Debilitating Bunion or just the Kang Who Got Worked by Thor and wiping them from their timelines?

Those stakes are meant to become all the clearer in not one, but two credits scenes that are essential for what lies ahead, as all roads lead to Avengers: ...

Led by Prime Kang, the council was part of a ruse by Immortus to wipe out all other Kang variants and ensure that Prime Kang became Immortus, rather than one of the other variants’ future selves. The scene serves to tee up Loki’s second season, which is expected to debut this summer and further explore the consequences of Kang’s machinations throughout the multiverse and takeover of the TVA. ➼ Finally, Immortus, the Master of Time, who appeared in Avengers No. Enter the three central variants of Kang (all of whom are played by Jonathan Majors) as they discuss the death, as far as they know, of “the exiled one” — Kang the Conqueror — who is (spoilers ahead!) defeated in the film by Ant-Man and the Wasp. ➼ In the comics, Rama-Tut was the first iteration of Kang, appeareing back in Fantastic Four No. The scene then cuts to thousands of Kang variants, each sporting slightly different looks, some of an alien species, cheering in a giant amphitheater as more variants are teleported in to join them.