Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania Director Speaks Out on X-Men and Nova MCU Projects

Now that Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is in theaters, Peyton Reed has become the first director in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to direct three films featuring a single character in the title role. Despite already starting the earliest work on Ant-Man 4, Reed now says he’s willing to explore other corners of the MCU with some potential new additions. Speaking in a new interview, Reed said he’d pass on helming Marvel’s X-Men reboot, though some cosmic characters do pique his interest.

“I’m not an X-Men guy. [Quantumania writer] Jeff Loveness, he’s an X-Men guy,” Reed told Collider. “I love the X-Men, I love watching X-Men movies. I don’t want to make an X-Men movie.”

That’s when the filmmaker pointed out he doesn’t need an A-list character to direct; as with Ant-Man and the Guardians of the Galaxy, Marvel Studios has been able to make household names out of lesser-known characters.

“That’s what’s great about Marvel because there’s this infinite… The ones that are interesting to me now are kind of the lesser. I mean, Ant-Man at the time – we knew Ant-Man, he was a founding member of the Avengers, but in terms of the public consciousness, he was probably a B-level, maybe a C-level character. Who knows, it depends on your point of view. I love that about him,” he continued.

That’s when Reed specifically name-dropped a beloved cosmic character: the Human Rocket.

“To me, he was almost like a subculture Marvel hero. It’s what drew me to Bring It On like, ‘A movie about cheerleaders? That’s weird,’ And drew me to Down With Love,” Reed concluded. “‘It’s like a sort of Rock Hudson, Doris Day homage as a romantic comedy set in the ’60s?’ I’m into that. I had the same attraction to Ant-Man, it was the same kind of thing. So I like the idea. I would do a Nova movie. I love [The Man Called Nova]. That seems cool.”

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!