Why ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp’ Is a Sequel to ‘Captain America: Civil War’

Ant-Man and the Wasp is a sequel to both Ant-Man and Captain America: Civil War, the events of which have had a major impact on the life of ex-con and single father Scott Lang (Paul Rudd), who has spent the last two years under house arrest following his capture at the hands of Team Iron Man.

"We could not ignore what happened to Scott Lang in [Captain America: Civil War] in this movie," Ant-Man and the Wasp producer and Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige said during a press conference attended by ComicBook.com on Sunday.

"There are ramifications of the Sokovia Accords and Scott being on house arrest. It really gave us a natural starting point."

"One of the things that was kind of nice was that it gave us a little bit of leeway a little harder than we would have been able to," added star Paul Rudd, who returns for his third time as Scott Lang. Now that Scott has been established, Rudd said, "it felt as if we had a little bit more freedom to play into the humor."

"The first time around we were still modulating. That was one of the really fun parts about this," he added.

Civil War saw the newbie superhero recruited by Falcon (Anthony Mackie) to Team Cap, where the size-shifting superhero used his shrinking and growing abilities to give Captain America (Chris Evans) and allies a much-needed assist during a strife against the other half of the Avengers who had sided with Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) in support of the Sokovia Accords, meant to impose governmental-controlled limits on superheroes.

"We definitely had to deal with the ramifications post-Civil War," director Peyton Reed told ComicBook.com during a visit to the Ant-Man and the Wasp set.

"That was crucial to Scott and crucial to Hope [Evangeline Lilly]. I mean, it really is fundamental in the jumping off point about what's going [on] between the two of them at the start of this movie. Outside of that, what I'm really happy about is we're free to tell sort of our freestanding story. Once we establish that as the leaping off point, this thing is going on over here."

The Ant-Man sequel takes place after Civil War but before Avengers: Infinity War, released in April, which did not count Ant-Man or new partner Wasp among its many assembled heroes. Both will appear in Avengers 4, out May 3, 2019.

Ant-Man and the Wasp opens July 6.