Trivia / Ant-Man and the Wasp

• Ability over Appearance: Janet van Dyne is typically known for being exceptionally short-statured in her normal size, standing between 5'2" to 5'4" Depending on the Writer, as well as having dark hair. Michelle Pfeiffer is quite a bit taller, standing at 5'7", and is usually blonde. However, it's Michelle Pfeiffer so it's not hard to see why they gave the role to her. Hayley Lovitt, who plays Janet in her younger form, is a bit closer in appearance to Janet at least, while also looking uncannily like a younger Pfeiffer.
• Acting in the Dark: Michael Douglas did this to himself by accident, as he did not see Captain America: Civil War, and was unaware that its events heavily tied into this film's plot. As such, he didn't know anything about Scott becoming Giant-Man, or why it was his fault that Hank and Hope were on the run from the authorities.
• Actor-Shared Background: Ava/Ghost has a heavy accented English accent and is revealed to be biracial, just like Hannah John-Kamen, despite the character canonically has parents of South American descents.
• All-Star Cast: With Paul Rudd and Evangeline Lilly as the leads, you have Michael Douglas, Michael Peña, T.I., Judy Greer, Bobby Cannavale and David Dastmalchian returning from the first movie, as well as newcomers Michelle Pfeiffer, Laurence Fishburne, Hannah John-Kamen, Walton Goggins and Randall Park.
• Auteur License: Within the MCU, Peyton Reed's success with salvaging the first Ant-Man film earned him creative freedom with this project. In fact, Marvel Studios reorganized the Phase 3 release schedule specifically to give him this opportunity.
• Author's Saving Throw: Yellowjacket received criticism as yet another Marvel villain with the same abilities as his enemy, so Peyton Reed made sure to give this movie a villain with more unique powers to that of the protagonists. Better yet, her suit is not the source of her abilities like our titular heroes but a means of trying to control it and dampen the pain she's in.
• Awesome, Dear Boy:
  • Laurence Fishburne's rationale for being in this film, as he had always dreamed of being in a Marvel film. He also appealed to Marvel to back a secret project that he had in mind.
  • Hannah John-Kamen has stated she loved playing Ghost, and in fact would be open to reprising her again in a Thunderbolts movie.
• Creator-Chosen Casting: Michelle Pfeiffer was Peyton Reed's dream voice to play Janet von Dyne when he was working on the first film.
• Deleted Scene: See here.
• Development Gag: Hope briefly muses to Scott about What Could Have Been if she had joined him in aiding Cap. Hope was, in fact, originally planned to debut as the Wasp in that movie before the directors changed their minds due to the large cast already present and Evangeline Lilly's pregnancy during shooting.
• Fake American: Canadian Evangeline Lilly playing American Hope van Dyne/The Wasp. Though, she is a United States resident. However, her Canadian accent surfaces whenever she refers to Janet as "Mum.". Averted with her young actress, Madeleine Mc Graw who is actually American.
• Fake Nationality: Randall Park is Korean American while his character Jimmy Woo is Chinese American. However, this could end up being more Minority to Other Minority since "Woo" is also used as a Korean surname as well.
• Inspiration for the Work: Peyton Reed was inspired by the films After Hours, Midnight Run, and What's Up, Doc? for the look and feel of the film. He was also inspired by the works of Elmore Leonard.
• Milestone Celebration:
  • The "io" of the "Marvel Studios" logo has been turned into "10", since it came out the year of the MCU's 10th anniversary.
  • Evangeline Lilly shared the first publicity still of Hope as Wasp on the 100th birthday of Janet's co-creator, Jack Kirby.
  • Regarding the film itself, it is the 20th entry of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The film also marks the 55th anniversary of the first appearance of The Wasp back in June 1963.
• Missing Trailer Scene:
  • Scott grows in size in front of a boatful of people and announces, "ME EAT PEOPLE!" to mess with them, causing the whale-watching tour guide to scream hysterically.
  • Cassie telling Scott, "I wanna fight bad guys like you!" doesn't happen, although the other line about her dad needing a partner when on hero business is left in.
  • The "I have wings, why would I go low?" exchange between Scott and Hope ends up cut.
  • At no point in the movie does Scott make noises in front of a fan as shown in some of the early trailers.
• The Other Darrin:
  • Michelle Pfeiffer takes over from Hayley Lovitt, who briefly played Janet in a silent cameo during the first film. Justified as Lovitt had played a younger version of Janet whose face was always covered in the first film, while Pfeiffer gets to play her in her aged appearance and have her face shown for the first time. Funnily enough, Lovitt looks uncannily like a younger Pfeiffer — hence why Peyton Reed cast her, as he had already started planning during Ant-Man to ask Pfeiffer to play Jan in the sequel. Lovitt is still Janet's young body double.
  • Michael Douglas' regular French dub actor (including in the first Ant-Man), Patrick Floersheim (who also dubbed Jeff Bridges in Iron Man), passed away in 2016 and was replaced by Hervé Jolly.
• Promoted Fanboy:
  • As stated before, Laurence Fishburne had always wanted to be in a Marvel film. Now, he gets to play Dr. Bill Foster.
  • Michelle Pfeiffer agreed to appear in the movie because she is a fan of the first Ant-Man.
• Real-Life Relative:
  • A younger Bill Foster seen in a flashback is played by Langston Fishburne, Laurence Fishburne's Real Life son.
  • Rebeca Patiño and her daughter Fernanda Robles Patiño respectively voiced Janet van Dyne and Ava Starr in the Latin American Spanish dub.
  • Gara Takashima, Janet van Dyne's Japanese voice actress, is the wife of Thanos's voice actor Banjo Ginga.
• Role-Ending Misdemeanor: This film would be T.I.'s final portrayal of Dave in the Ant-Man films, due to accusations made against him and his wife of sexual assault in 2021.
• Those Two Actors:
  • Paul Rudd and Michelle Pfeiffer were in I Could Never Be Your Woman playing the film's Official Couple.
  • Hannah John-Kamen and Walton Goggins were in Tomb Raider (2018), which premiered just a few months prior to this film.
  • Walton Goggins and Michael Peña reunite after their time as Shane Vendrell and Armando "Army" Renta on The Shield.
• Toyless Toyline Character: Ant-Man and the Wasp is the first MCU film since Thor: The Dark World to not receive its own wave of Marvel Legends figures from Hasbro, likely due to lackluster sales of merchandise from the first movie. Scott and Hope were instead included in the second Avengers: Infinity War wave, while Ghost and Luis later got their own figures as part of a two-pack for Marvel Studios' ongoing 10 Years milestone celebration.
• Throw It In!: Kurt's sudden frightened lullaby after Ghost left was actually ad-libbed, as actor David Dastmalchian revealed in his Reddit AMA session:
  /u/IAmDavidDastmalchian: That was actually in the script when Kurt says "Like Baba Yaga.... The witch." But when we did it there was a really funny reaction from everyone and we just kept expanding the joke. When GHOST first jumps out and scares us in the interrogation scene, I just started improv'ing a little lullaby... :)
• What Could Have Been:
  • Catherine Zeta-Jones and Sharon Stone were considered for the part of Janet Van Dyne before the casting of Michelle Pfeiffer. Interestingly, Zeta-Jones is also married to Michael Douglas who portrays Hank Pym in the film.
  • Giancarlo Esposito was considered for the role of Bill Foster before Laurence Fishburne was cast.
  • Chris Evans was supposed to cameo as Steve Rogers as part of a scene where Luis was retelling the tarmac fight from Captain America: Civil War.
  • Peyton Reed hoped to make Scott realizing the suit can make him bigger as well as smaller a major plot point, and was none too pleased to have it stolen by Captain America: Civil War. Because of that, Reed stated he actually had to dig in his heels with the Russos and brass to keep Wasp's debut for his movie so that it would have something.
  • There were multiple pieces of concept art that portrayed Cassie as wearing a shrinking suit and having fun alongside her father while he was on house arrest. That never happened in the final product, likely due to a change in story direction. If it were in the movie, it would've made the subtext of Cassie eventually becoming Stature (possibly even Stinger later on) much more obvious.
  • An entire alternate opening was conceived for the film, which would've had Hank Pym and Janet van Dyne at the height of their superhero careers going to Buenos Aires to stop a traitorous Elihas Starr from trying to activate his own Quantum Tunnel. This ended up being scrapped, as Peyton Reed felt that it was "too much backstory" and bogged down the film significantly.
  • During the mid-credits scene, the Pym-Van Dyne family had initially enacted themselves being snapped by Thanos rather than the Smash Cut to their disintegrated corpses seen in the final product. According to Evangeline Lilly, it was changed because nobody knew what being snapped was supposed to look like (as the scene was shot long before Infinity War came out).
• Word of Saint Paul: One of the movie's writers has stated that he believes Norman Osborn to be Sonny Burch's employer. This seems to be jossed as of Spider-Man: No Way Home, where it’s shown the MCU does not have a Norman Osborn or an Oscorp.
• Working Title: The movie was filmed under Cherry Blue.
• Written by Cast Member: As with the first film, Paul Rudd, who plays Ant-Man, co-wrote the script.
• You Sound Familiar: In the European French dub, Paul Borne dubs Bill Foster (being the regular voice of Laurence Fishburne). He also did Nicky Fury in Iron Man and dubs Thanos since 2014. Counting the ABC and Netflix series, he also voiced Harvey in Jessica Jones, Grill in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Henry "Pop" Hunter in Luke Cage.

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