ANT-MAN Star Paul Rudd Says He Has "No Idea" When He'll Make MCU Return As Scott Lang

ANT-MAN Star Paul Rudd Says He Has "No Idea" When He'll Make MCU Return As Scott Lang

After Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania proved to be a critical and commercial disappointment at the start of last year, Paul Rudd has weighed in on what he knows about his MCU future as Scott Lang...

By JoshWilding - Mar 23, 2024 05:03 AM EST
Filed Under: Ant-Man

Since his introduction in 2015's Ant-Man, Scott Lang has become a major part of the MCU. He joined "Team Cap" in Captain America: Civil War and, trapped in the Quantum Realm at the end of Ant-Man and The Wasp, the former criminal proved himself a hero by helping save the universe in Avengers: Endgame.

It's a shame then that Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania let down him and Paul Rudd last year. The movie, shot primarily on The Volume, was a disappointment and the poor critical and commercial response likely means Ant-Man will never again headline his own blockbuster. 

Still, seeing as the threequel ended with Scott convinced he'd doomed the Multiverse by defeating Kang the Conqueror, he's bound to be a pivotal part of the next Avengers movies. 

For what it's worth, though, Rudd - doing the rounds to promote Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire - claims to be in the dark about his MCU future. 

"I have no idea. None whatsoever," he says in the video below. "You know, that's always in their camp. We'll see. If they have ideas and if that were to come about, then I guess we'll find out...I don't really know."

Rudd has almost heard the chatter about Disney CEO Bob Iger pulling the plug on sequels to unsuccessful MCU movies and we'd bet that he'll likely bid farewell to Ant-Man in those next Avengers movies. 

Talking to us last year about whether any different Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania endings were considered, writer Jeff Loveness - who has reportedly been fired as Avengers 5's sole scribe - shared the following about Scott's hero journey in the threequel:

"Yeah, we certainly, pitched out and we gamed out how many versions of how to do the ending and we certainly went through our paces with that. I think, ultimately, I see the thoughts on the internet about stranding people and killing people, but, at the end of the day, it would have just been the same ending of Ant Man 2. It's like, ‘Oh, Scott is trapped in the Quantum Realm again,’ and then, it would have been the same exit point as Endgame where, ‘Oh, he's in the Quantum Realm, and now he's out of the Quantum Realm.'"

"Hey, comic book fans are like sports fans, it's gonna get messy, and there's going to be opinions, but I loved where we landed because it's a real Hero's Journey of the guy who was carefree and thought his hero days were done, having to really bite the bullet, be willing to sacrifice himself and then get saved by his family and then, saved by his daughter, realizing that he's not as alone as he thought he was, you don't have to throw yourself on the grenade if you've got help."

"The guy who starts out so carefree is now burdened with this dread at the end, and now he's going to be almost the Paul Revere of the multiverse, I think. He's the only one who knows about Kang, and he's not quite sure what's going to happen and I think going forward, we'll see, but I think it's very interesting with this ending that we went with. The guy who saved the universe in Endgame may potentially be the guy who [frick]s the universe now, multiverse actually. I'm sure there are YouTube reaction videos that I should pay close attention to, but I think I'm gonna be happy with where our stories go."

What are you hopes for Ant-Man moving forward?

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ObserverIO
ObserverIO - 3/23/2024, 6:00 AM
Everybody else has a clue. Avengers. Duh.
Matchesz
Matchesz - 3/23/2024, 6:27 AM
Ant man nearly beating buff ass Kang in a man to man fist fight was dumb and uncreative. Would have rather had a ant man villain like black ant be the third movies villain, same with dr strange with nightmare.
Scarilian
Scarilian - 3/23/2024, 10:41 AM
@Matchesz -
Agreed. Nightmare would have been an excellent choice in order to further the exploration of Strange's trauma, exploring the reason he was so obsessive in the previous movie and his entire motivation for why he wants to be a Doctor and why he is pushing himself so hard as a superhero - the death of his sister Donna Strange.

In regards to Ant-Man 3, Kang should have effectively won. He should have entered the film, fought and killed Hank Pym, then proceeded to severely injure Scott. Janet would have sacrificed herself to save Cassie while Hope would have returned to the Quantum Realm leaving her and Scott stranded in the Quantum Realm as prisoners of Kang. This sets up the idea that Kang will eventually return. Scott and Hope could be turned into servants of Kang - Giant Man and Red Queen respectively forcing Cassie to step-up to save her parents.

Though at the end of the day these concepts and ideas we speculate on, it's too late for the MCU to implement them. They've damaged the franchise so much that even if they made a future installment with these characters it would be unlikely to perform well financially.
TheVisionary25
TheVisionary25 - 3/23/2024, 6:28 AM
Going by the projects that have been announced so far , he’ll likely show up next in Avengers 5 and/or Secret Wars which is fine.

I just hope that when he does appear next that they utilize his electrical engineering skills more since they haven’t really done that since the first film…

It just shows that he’s smart in his own way as opposed to scientists such as Hank Pym & Bill Foster.

Also , I just realized that Ant Man & The Wasp ended with Scott trapped in the Quantum Realm and if reports are true then the original ending of Quantumania ended with him & Hope trapped there…

They most likely changed that because it would have felt like a retread which i can understand then.
TheVisionary25
TheVisionary25 - 3/23/2024, 6:29 AM
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Apophis71
Apophis71 - 3/24/2024, 7:29 AM
@TheVisionary25 - That and the first showed Janet was trapped there and rescued in the second, do think killing Hank may have been a path to go down so that the rest have to step up and show their scientific skills more without him in the future (and enough with the heist storylines as had him involved in four of those now).

I suspect that Kang will have survived and evolved into a much greater threat due to being kicked into his machine and maybe having showing him metamorphosing into the Beyonder during an end credit could have worked. The 'killed to easily' is a tad flawed as sans his tech is no different to Tony being just a relatively easy to kill human if he hasn't got a suit to hand so showing that in defeat of a battle Kang was set on a path to win the war could have been an improvement. I also thing they should have had multiple actors not just one in the council of Kangs scene, have at least one younger and one older black actor shown amongst the main ones instead of all majors and more variations in appearance of those in the gallery (even if most looked like Jonathon).

I mean the film had more issues than just those ones, external factors and having to fix stuff in post likely largely to blame for a fair amount of that, but tweaks to those few things could have made more see it as a decent film (even if still flawed) rather than the majority vocal opinion it was flat out BAD (and that is someone who hasn't loved any of the Antman films, only the first was an OK film for me).
StSteven
StSteven - 3/24/2024, 2:43 PM
@TheVisionary25 - Yeah actually at the end of the article above it's got that chunk of an interview with the writer (Jeff Loveness) where he says the exact same thing about the ending of "AM2" with Scott being stuck in the QR and then having to escape again, so that along with his other reasons as to why they chose the ending that they did seem pretty sound to me even if there were other issues with the story (like how Kang was so easily dispatched).

@Apophis71 - I've always thought that the intention with handling Kang the way that they did was for him to somehow combine with his machine and return as the Beyonder for "A:SW" now with power over the Multiverse thereby making him an even bigger threat than Kang and we may still eventually see some form of that (which would make more sense to me than just having Doom show up as the big bad in that movie because at least we have had SOME build up with Kang so far). But I totally agree that having a post credit scene showing Kang merged with his machine and just waking up or opening an eye (which is now glowing or something) and floating in nothingness would have gone a big way in teasing his return as a more powerful version of himself (not to mention helping to dispel the "he was killed by ants" rhetoric currently out there).
ProfessorWhy
ProfessorWhy - 3/23/2024, 7:51 AM
Secret wars. Then we get Hank Pym and Janet Van Dien in Avengers MCNew
WakandanQueen
WakandanQueen - 3/23/2024, 8:00 AM
Well, he and Hope were at least set up to have a pretty prominent role in the next Avengers film, but I guess it all depends on what direction they take with Kang. Quantumania would have been the building block for them to maybe lead or try to get the Avengers together again, but now... oh well.
BobbyDrake
BobbyDrake - 3/23/2024, 9:20 AM
He knows!!!
ItsNotForMeWahh
ItsNotForMeWahh - 3/23/2024, 12:43 PM
@BobbyDrake - I dunno, I feel like a lot is up in the air with having to pivot from Kang and also the writers strike probably didn't help
SolarSoldier
SolarSoldier - 3/23/2024, 10:02 AM
Ant-Man wasn't bad. I wish they showed more of the Quantum Realm. The Kang fight was good, but too much comedy during the battle, which is par for Marvel.

People act like Star-Lord didn't do a dance off with Ronan. It's always been this way.
JakeDaSnakkke
JakeDaSnakkke - 3/23/2024, 10:37 AM
@SolarSoldier - I agree. I thought Quantumania was the way an Ant Man movie should have been instead of making ant man a Captain America movie.
bobevanz
bobevanz - 3/23/2024, 10:39 AM
Secret wars
DocSpock
DocSpock - 3/23/2024, 10:57 AM

Mickey the Rat has no idea either.
bkmeijer1
bkmeijer1 - 3/23/2024, 12:40 PM
Think it'd be funny if he showed up in Brave New World or Thunderbolts, but I doubt that. Most likely Avengers 5
WhateverItTakes
WhateverItTakes - 3/23/2024, 12:48 PM
Hank Pym>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Scott Lang
marvel72
marvel72 - 3/23/2024, 1:16 PM
Well it won't be Ant-Man 4.

So the next Avengers movie.

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