Ant-Man 3 Director Reveals Why Fan-Favorite Character Wasn't Included

Between the first two films in the Ant-Man franchise, Scott Lang's (Paul Rudd) supporting characters have become a favorite amongst fans. Out of Lang's three ex-con buddies, Luis (Michael Peña) is usually singled out for his performances in the first two features with his ability to candidly recall serious events. Unfortunately for fans of the franchise, Peña's character didn't make it into Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,  and at not point was the character set to appear.

"There were no versions of this movie [with Luis]," Reed said in a recent chat with The Hollywood Reporter. "There are a lot of characters in the movie. We obviously have our Lang, van Dyne and Pym family, but then we also introduced Kang, MODOK and all of our Freedom Fighter characters."

Reed explained that because of the limited time given to explore the story, they had to cut whatever characters they could out of the mix.

"We had to make decisions early on about what stories we could tell and what stories we couldn't tell. I love those characters," the filmmaker added. "They were really, really fun and part of the Lang family, but as we got further and further into [development] and knew we wanted to bring the family into the Quantum Realm pretty early in the movie, it just didn't make sense [to include Luis and co.]."

Both Peña and David Dastmalchian both said they weren't going to appear in the movie last year. While Dastmalchian didn't appear as Kurt in the film, he did provide the voice for one of the aforementioned Freedom Fighters.

"It doesn't look like it... But that's okay," Dastmalchian explained when asked about his status. "I know they're making something incredible. I can't wait to see what Peyton does next. He's one of my favorite directors... He's been so busy. I have tried to stay in touch, but he's making an incredible film right now."

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is now in theaters. What'd you think of the latest entry in the Ant-Man franchise? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section!