Get ready to go sub-atomic! Disney and Marvel Studios have skipped the usual trailer rollout format for big-budget franchise tentpoles. For Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, there was no 30-second teaser or a trailer-for-a-trailer. Instead, the studios dropped the first full trailer out of the blue (literally).
In this clip, set to a remix of Elton John’s 1973 classic “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” we see Scott Lang (Paul Rudd), the most “everyman” of the Marvel heroes, finally basking in the glory of having saved the universe from Thanos. As we saw in Ms. Marvel, he already has a popular podcast that revealed to the world just what went down in the final battle in Avengers: Endgame.
In the trailer, Scott is honored by Baskin-Robbins, the ice cream parlor that fired him within the first ten minutes of Ant-Man. We also see Scott and Hope Van Dyne/The Wasp (Evangeline Lilly) attending a red carpet gala, like true celebrities.
However, it appears that Scott and Hope don’t have much time to revel in this newfound fame, as Scott’s daughter, Cassie (now played by Kathryn Newton, taking over for Emma Thurman, who played her in Endgame) has invented a device that can communicate with the Quantum Realm. Something that Janet Van Dyne (Michelle Pfeifer) declares is a bad idea… too late.
The Langs and Van Dynes are sucked into the Quantum Realm and separated. It appears that a chunk of the beginning of this movie will focus on them reuniting with one another.
The trailer is filled with mindblowing CGI visuals, but the biggest “wow” was the introduction of Jonathan Majors as Kang the Conqueror. Majors played a variation of Kang in Loki referred to as He Who Remains, but that iteration wasn’t truly evil. It appears that THIS Kang is closer to the classic villain from Marvel Comics.
And that costume! He’s got the blue mask, the purple and green costume… one of the most comic-accurate depictions in all of the Marvel movies!
Peyton Reed, who directed the first two Ant-Man movies returns for the third. The cast also includes Michael Douglas as Hank Pym, Randall Park as Agent Jimmy Woo, and Bill Murray as a new character, Krylar. The villain MODOK is confirmed to appear and it is heavily rumored that this version will be Darren Cross, played by Corey Stoll, the villain also known as Yellowjacket in the first film. He appeared to be killed, but this is a comic book franchise, so it’s entirely likely that he was just shrunken down into the Quantum Realm and mutated into the giant head with arms and legs that fans have been waiting to see in live-action.
In addition to the trailer, Disney and Marvel have released a poster:
Somebody call Kevin Feige. Someone royally screwed up! This is NOT a photoshopped collage of all the stars’ heads and torsos! (No, that’s the Black Panther: Wakanda Forever poster. Yeah, I said it.)
Marvel Phase Four has been… spotty. I liked all of it a lot more than a lot of people did, particularly with the experimentation with new and lesser-known characters. But it has been seemingly rudderless, missing some of its major stars, and with no *ahem* “endgame” in sight. With the release of this trailer, accompanied by the knowledge that Kang will play a major role in future installments, it seems that Phase Five will clearly establish the direction for the MCU moving forward.
And it all kicks off in less than four months when Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania hits theaters on February 17, 2023.
