Out promoting the home video release of Ant-Man on blu-ray and DVD, director Peyton Reed shared that he recieved letters from concerned Moms who were hoping the director could tell their kids that Antony was still alive. Sadly, that was something Reed just coudln't do. "And then the further we got into it [the script], the more we liked the idea of this sacrifice – could we get an emotional reaction from an audience in a movie called Ant-Man from an ant dying? It started to intrigue us. Everybody steps on ants everyday, but this really appealed to us, me particularly, and we were really able to pull it off. It’s a weird little tragic moment.
There’s a couple of moms who have written and said, "My son is distraught about Antony dying. Can you please just tell me, did he really die?" And I could have said, "Well, he did die. Maybe now’s a good time to explain to your child that sometimes there are casualties. "But what I actually said was the average lifespan of an ant is something like 12 weeks, so he was probably going to die pretty soon anyway."
As far as what's to come in Ant-Man & The Wasp, Reed indicated that the sequel will explore ideas and themes touched on the first film however, the film will be vastly different from its predecessor. "I’m doubly excited. We’re going to do some very, very different things in the next movie and we’ve set up stuff in the first movie that we can have a lot of fun with in the second movie and go both bigger and smaller at the same time."
Was the 'bigger and smaller' quip a sly hint to expect Ant-Man's larger-than-life persona, Giant Man? Feel free to draw your own conclusions. And as far as exploring elements that were set up in the first film, definitely expect to see more of the Macroverse and find out the ultimate fate of Janet Van Dyne.
With a worldwide box office haul of $517 million US dollars, Ant-Man arrives on home video November 17.