‘Ant-Man and the Wasp’ Concept Art Gives Janet Van Dyne a Very Different Costume

Ant-Man and the Wasp finally introduced fans to the Marvel Cinematic Universe‘s version of Janet Van Dyne/The Wasp, but her aesthetic almost took on a completely different context.

Aleksi Briclot, who served as a concept artist on the Marvel Studios film, recently shared an early piece of character design for Michelle Pfeiffer‘s version of Janet. The design, which you can check out below, gives the heroine a starkly different, white costume, which was supposed to signify her connection to the Quantum Realm.

Ultimately, it isn’t too hard to see why Janet’s design evolved further from here, especially with the visual similarities to the film’s antagonist, Ava Starr/Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen). Still, it’s interesting to see the various iterations of Janet’s costume, before the version that ultimately made it onto the big screen.

It’s safe to say that Marvel fans have taken a liking to Janet’s debut, in part thanks to Pfeiffer’s portrayal of the iconic character. And as it turns out, the goal from the beginning was to have the actress play the role.

“We used a double on the first movie.” director Peyton Reed explained earlier this year. “But the whole thing was, ‘I want her to look like Michelle Pfeiffer, because that would be my dream casting for Wasp.’ We cast this woman to be in the mask who had really saucer-like, Michelle Pfeiffer eyes.”

I had no idea if she would even be remotely interested in doing this kind of a movie again or how she’d feel about it.” Reed revealed. “So, we met. She came over and sat in one of the conference rooms, just the two of us at Marvel and kind of talked through who Janet Van Dyne was in the comics and who she might be in this movie. She was really funny, because one of the first things she said to me, she was like, “You know. I’m going to tell you up front. My process on every single movie I have ever done in my career, I’ve tried to back out of the movie at the last minute. That’s just my M.O..”

“And I said to her, ‘Is this your way to say you want me to woo you more? Is that part of the thing?’” Reed continued. “She’s like, ‘No, legitimately — yes, I want you to woo me more, but legitimately it’s that kind of thing [that I try to back out of roles].’” Reed continued. “Then after meeting her, it became more and more, ‘Now I’m convinced if she doesn’t do it, I’m going to be a wreck.’ We gave her some comics. I said, ‘You can scour the internet and do all the research you want, but it’s only going to get you so far, because the comics and that character started in the early ’60s. A lot of the stuff in the comics is really two-dimensional, if not one-dimensional, and we want to do something different.’”

What do you think of this early Ant-Man and the Wasp concept art? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

Avengers: Infinity War is now available on digital platforms, DVD, and Blu-ray. Ant-Man and the Wasp is in theaters now. Other upcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe movies include Captain Marvel on March 8, 2019; the fourth Avengers movie on May 3, 2019; and Spider-Man: Far From Home on July 5, 2019.