Peyton Reed Addresses Amount of Time Between ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp’ and ‘Avengers: Infinity War’

Ant-Man and the Wasp director Peyton Reed says the creative team was "deliberately" vague in addressing how much time passes between the Ant-Man sequel and Avengers: Infinity War.

Released after Infinity War but taking place mostly before it — except for its mid-credits scene, which plays out after a certain late Infinity War development — Ant-Man and the Wasp is set some two years after Captain America: Civil War, detailing the tail end of Scott Lang's (Paul Rudd) two-year house arrest.

"I mean, the whole movie really takes place over a three-day period, his last three days of house arrest. In terms of how long before the Thanos event those three days were, it's undetermined," Reed said in conversation with the Empire Film Podcast.

The Ant-Man sequel ends with Lang having helped Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly) and Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) reunite with the long-lost Janet van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer), who was missing in the vast reaches of the Quantum Realm.

Reunited, the denouement finds the wedded couple have retreated to their house relocated on a tropical beach. The mid-credits scene sees the pair returned to San Francisco and in the middle of a withdrawal of energy from the Quantum Realm, a mission that ends with Scott helplessly trapped in the void as Hope, Hank and Janet turn to ash outside and evaporate.

"I mean, we have to assume that Hank and Janet spent a little time in their seaside house, wherever on this remote island, and came back and got to work on this Quantum experiment," Reed said. "So, you know, it is undetermined, but it's not that long a period of time, because we really do play our characters [where] they are sort of in their bubble doing their thing and really unaware of all the events that are happening."

Reed added it was important for the movie to go out on that dramatic cliffhanger-slash-Infinity War tie-in with the mid-credits scene — a major hook for Ant-Man's involvement in Avengers 4 — but wanted that separation offered by the main credits.

"It's such a giant, dramatic swing, that you had to be careful where you placed it in the movie," he said. "We knew we didn't want the movie proper to end with that, because it was just too [dejecting] — I mean, it's still a downer anyway you slice it, but we didn't want it to be in the body, and to me there is a difference there."

Ant-Man returns in Avengers 4, out May 3, 2019.