Ant-Man 3 Almost Killed Off Major Marvel Character

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania killed its two main antagonists, and it nearly killed one of its heroes as well. In one iteration of the script, Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) was set to meet his maker, until the powers that be at Marvel Studios opted otherwise. Quantumania writer Jeff Loveness revealed the harrowing details in a recent chat with Backstory Magazine, saying Pym’s consciousness would have lived on in a bizarre manner.

 “We were going to kill Hank at one point, and I was going to have him be, like, reanimated,” he told the magazine (via The Direct). “His consciousness was going to live on through the ants, and he was going to be like mentally controlling them. Yeah, he was going to be almost like this hive mind of the ants, and I like that… that didn’t go too far.”

What deleted Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantumania scenes are there?

Another moment that Loveness wanted to write was the introduction of a man-sized ant during one of the film’s most extreme moments, though it was another thing quickly sent to the chopping block.

“There was a psychological sequence in that probability storm, or that quantum nexus, there was more of a dream sequence element to it,” the writer added. “I had like a big, like man-sized ant that was going to be almost like a ninja turtle, the way they looked in that 90s movie, not CGI, make it almost like a Cronenberg ‘The Fly’-like Ant. And it was like in his head. I wanted it to be voiced by Werner Herzog and give it some sort of Holy Mountain kind of advice, some Vision Quest thing. That didn’t get in.”

Here’s how Marvel describes the trip into the Quantum Realm: “In the film, which officially kicks off phase 5 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Super-Hero partners Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) and Hope Van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly) return to continue their adventures as Ant-Man and the Wasp. Together, with Hope’s parents Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) and Janet Van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer), the family finds themselves exploring the Quantum Realm, interacting with strange new creatures and embarking on an adventure that will push them beyond the limits of what they thought was possible. Jonathan Majors joins the adventure as Kang.”

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania will be available for purchase as a digital copy beginning April 18th while it will receive a physical home media release on May 16th. It has yet to be confirmed when the movie will hit Disney+.