(Please note: There are minor spoilers ahead for “Ant-Man and the Wasp,” “Infinity War” and the MCU at large)
“Ant-Man and the Wasp” is set two years after the events of “Captain America: Civil War,” which is the last time audiences saw Paul Rudd’s character Scott Lang, aka Ant-Man, suit up and shrink down.
Then, Lang was recruited to fight alongside Captain America in opposition of Team Iron-Man and the Sakovia Accords, the supposed driving force of conflict in the movie.
Seeing as Lang was helping Captain America, a war criminal by this point, he was in violation of Sakovia Accords. The next time we see Lang in “Ant-Man and the Wasp” he’s serving the last three days of his two years of house arrest. According to “Ant-Man and the Wasp” director Peyton Reed, however, Lang’s story arc from “Civil War” on was almost vastly different.
“There was a question [in ‘Civil War’] as to what side Ant-Man was gonna fight on and at one point he was going to be Team Iron Man,” Reed told TheWrap. “I said, ‘Hold on a second, we built this whole movie where Hank Pym — Scott’s mentor — is definitely not a fan of the Starks and he would hate that.’ They said, ‘yeah OK maybe he should be Team Cap.’”
And it’s a good thing too. The scene in “Civil War” where Lang meets and is enamored with Captain America is played for laughs and is reference again as a running gag in “Ant-Man and the Wasp.”
Reed, who also directed the first “Ant-Man,” said he worked with brothers Anthony and Joe Russo when they were preparing to direct “Civil War.”
“As far back as the first ‘Ant-Man,’ the Russos and [Christopher Markus] and [Stephen McFeely] — the [‘Captain America: Civil War’] writers — came to the cutting room and I showed them footage from the first movie of so they could formulate what they were going to do with that character in ‘Civil War,’” Reed told TheWrap. “It’s a cool give and take, and something I’ve never experienced before — well, I don’t think they’ve made movies like this before.”
“It was really important to kind of share information,” he continued. “I think we all feel very protective about these characters and want to make sure if they’re appearing in other movies that they’re treated well and have the right character choices.”