Peyton Reed Explains Why 'Ant-Man' Sequel Established The Wasp So Quickly

Ant-Man and The Wasp wasted little time before establishing Evangeline Lilly's Marvel heroine as a capable bad-ass after sidelining her from suiting up in 2015's movie. For director Peyton Reed, it was important to show off what she is capable of very quickly.

Mild spoilers for Ant-Man and The Wasp follow.

Speaking to ComicBook.com, Reed opened up about the moments early in Ant-Man and The Wasp which saw Hope van Dyne wearing the Wasp suit given to her by Hank Pym in Ant-Man's post-credits scene. Immediately, she was slinging salt shakers and running along knives' blades to establish herself as one of Marvel's best on-screen heroes to date.

"To me, it was kind of like maybe the first thing that we talked about, because we'd already done all of the work of creating her origin," Reed said. "You didn't need to know anything else about her because in the first movie she trained Ant-Man. That's really all you need to know. So I think people were just primed for it already. So we knew that when she came out of the gate, she was going to come out of the gate decisive, and strong, and hard, and just be kick ass. So, we wanted to create a set piece that kind of demonstrated all the various aspects of her power set, and create something that was really fun, but also just announce, 'Okay, holy s---, here she is, and it's been worth the wait.' So, that was really how we approached that."

For now, though, Reed will have to sit back and watch his Ant-Man and The Wasp heroes go to work with the Avengers and the Russo Brothers as their new directors for Avengers 4. It's not an entirely new feeling for Reed, having sent Scott Lang off to Captain America: Civil War previously, but still provides an interesting experience.

"You know, it is a weird thing, and I think I've talked about how when Paul went off with [Anthony Russo and Joe Russo] to do Civil War," Reed said. "It's like, 'Oh, man, they're getting the Giant-Man reveal, and he's hanging with out with Captain America?!' "

This time around, Ant-Man and his pals won't be fighting other Avengers but they will be banding together to take on Thanos and Reed was expecting such a progression heading into Ant-Man and The Wasp. "I think it's just something going into this situation, you know that that that's going to happen, but I do feel like it's cool that they go off and work in that ensemble," Reed said. "But I think I do like that when we come back and do tell the next chapter of the Ant-Man and The Wasp story. It does give us room narratively to really develop their characters in a way that I think is definitely more challenging to do in the larger ensemble movies. So, there's probably a little piece of me that will always die when they go off and do someone else's movie, but hopefully, at the end of the day they'll come back home."

Ant-Man and The Wasp and Avengers: Infinity War are now playing in theaters. Captain Marvel will follow it in March of 2019, with Avengers 4 coming in May of 2019 and Spider-Man: Far From Home slated for release on July 5, 2019.