Peyton Reed Poured His Love For The Fantastic Four Into Ant-Man 3
"Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania" may tout itself as an epic (sub)space adventure, but at the end of the day it's really about family. That's why director Peyton Reed took inspiration from the Fantastic Four, lovingly dubbed "Marvel's First Family," for his take on Scott Lang and the quantum crew. His connection to the superhero group extends beyond mere fandom, too. Years before Reed got the gig directing the "Ant-Man" movies, he was signed on to direct the 2005 "Fantastic Four" film for 20th Century Fox Studios. Tim Story got the gig instead, but memories of the project stuck with Reed for the next two decades.
Reed's original plan for "Fantastic Four" took place in the 1960s and was meant to depict what an ordinary day would look like in the lives of this extraordinary family. The director cited the 1964 Beatles mockumentary "A Hard Day's Night" as his main inspiration and claimed that the narrative wouldn't even "deal with the origin story." Instead, it sounds as if Reed had planned a superhero film with a loose structure that focused on the personal and public lives of the Fantastic Four. While "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania" certainly doesn't retain that chill, minimalist plot, there are elements of Reed's brief time spent with "Fantastic Four" that influenced his direction on the Marvel Cinematic Universe adventure.
Marvel's First Family
In an interview with Collider, Peyton Reed talked about how the premise of "Fantastic Four" gave way to creating a story about how a family comes together in a cosmic adventure:
"I developed 'Fantastic Four' like 20 years ago. I channeled a lot of my Fantastic Four love into the 'Ant-Man' world, and specifically into 'Quantumania.' You know, it's no mistake that both are kind of [about] dysfunctional families of superheroes, and in 'Fantastic Four' they may go into the Negative Zone, we went to the Quantum Realm. I really scratched that itch with these movies."
The original "Fantastic Four" comic books grew to represent everything that defined Marvel. Stan Lee wrote the group to be a flawed, bickering household that learned how to love each other through the trippy, sci-fi worlds of artist Jack Kirby. The Quantum Realm also shares more than a few similarities with the Negative Zone, an "in-between" dimension that hosts its own ecosystem of strange beings and warring cultures. Matt Shakman, director of "WandaVision," is currently lined up to direct Marvel Studios' planned "Fantastic Four" film, but Reed will have the satisfaction of having at least toyed with the otherworldly adventures of Marvel's First Family.
"Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania" is now playing in theaters.