‘Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania’ is one of the MCU's most anticipated movies, but it is breaking a key trend when it comes to Ant-Man films. Peyton Reed will return to direct Quantumania, which will see Paul Rudd's Scott Lang/Ant-Man appear for the first time since Avengers: Endgame and a brief Marvel's What If...? appearance. Rudd will be joined again by Evangeline Lilly as Hope van Dyne/Wasp and Michael Douglas as Hank Pym in another adventure that will see the shrinking superheroes explore more of the Quantum Realm.
Paul Rudd's Ant-Man has become an important part of the MCU since his introduction in 2015. Ant-Man's unique powers come from Hank Pym's technology which allows Lang to manipulate his size when he battles villains and teams up with the Avengers. Having been off screen since 2019, he will return in Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania in February 2023 as part of the MCU's Phase 5, but the movie's scheduled release makes a change from previous Ant-Man films.
Up until now, the Ant-Man movies have come at the end of MCU phases, but Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania will buck the trend by kicking off Phase 5. Ant-Man was the final film of Phase 2, and Ant-Man And The Wasp came towards the end of Phase 3, but arguably both should have started the following phases. Phase 2 of the MCU, for example, should have ended with Avengers: Age Of Ultron given the chapter was centered on the original MCU Avengers, but instead, Ant-Man was the last movie. Rather than bringing Phase 2 to an end, Ant-Man introduced new characters and crucial new concepts, such as the Quantum Realm, which had important repercussions down the line, like Avengers: Endgame's time heist, so arguably it would have been a better fit to start Phase 3. Given that Ant-Man's movies have a tendency to set up key MCU storylines, it's a good decision to have Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania open Phase 5. -Collider