Credit: Marvel StudiosIt’s no secret that the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) hasn’t exactly gotten a lot of love in recent years. And now, new remarks from the star of the ill-fated Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023) seem to confirm the worst of audiences’ suspicions after she opened up about the blockbuster’s “absolutely chaotic” production.
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There’s no denying that Marvel Studios has struggled to regain its footing following the conclusion of its critically acclaimed Infinity Saga in 2019 with Avengers: Endgame. After a rocky start to the MCU’s Phase Four, Phase Five hardly kicked off with much of a bang thanks to its opening film, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.
The Paul Rudd-led Ant-Man threequel, which also stars Kathryn Newton as Cassie Lang, Michelle Pfeiffer as Janet Van Dyne, Michael Douglas as Hank Pym, and Evangeline Lilly as Hope Van Dyne, largely fell flat with audiences due to its cheap-looking VFX, jumbled storyline, and lackluster action sequences, becoming a box office disappointment with a worldwide gross of just $476.1 million.
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Instead of serving as Marvel’s proper introduction for its next Thanos-level threat, Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors), the movie marked a disappointing new low for the MCU, failing to garner much of any hype for the ensuing Multiverse Saga. Following Majors’ arrest, Disney and Marvel have since elected to part ways with Kang altogether, making Quantumania feel all the more meaningless in retrospect.
Now, Katy O’Brian, who played warrior-leader Jentorra in the latest Ant-Man entry, is letting her thoughts known on the film — and she’s not holding back.
Speaking with Entertainment Weekly, O’Brian opened up about her experience filming Quantumania, which she described as “absolutely chaotic,” as she was “getting new pages” pretty much until the last day of shooting:
Yeah, that was absolutely chaotic. I think we were getting new pages until the last day, and I think I was getting new fights the last day. I just show up, and they’re like, ‘here’s a new fight.’
Although O’Brian was — according to the outlet — saying all this with a laugh, her comments do seem to coincide with reports that Marvel reshot the threequel’s ending weeks before it arrived in theaters, which could’ve easily contributed to the movie’s structural and pacing issues.
Still, O’Brian made sure to stress that the people she worked with on Quantumania couldn’t have been more “lovely,” even if things seem to have operated a lot smoother on her other significant franchise role playing Imperial spy Elia Kane in The Mandalorian:
I thought me being this kind of like newbie, they might, I don’t know, either ignore me or I would just feel out of place, but they just always made it as welcoming as possible. I was surprised by that environment.
Thankfully, O’Brian seems to have generally positive memories of filming the third Ant-Man installment — even if the end product wasn’t exactly what audiences had hoped for. It’s difficult to say if we’ll ever return to the Quantum Realm in future MCU storytelling, but if we do, it sure sounds like O’Brian is game to reprise her role.
As Disney and Marvel continue to reevaluate things behind the scenes, with 2024 set to be an unusually quiet year for the MCU, hopefully, similar incidents like last-minute reshoots and script rewrites won’t be as common moving forward.
At the very least, it’s good to know that Katy O’Brian and the rest of the Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania got along and seem to have had fun on set, regardless of all the “chaos.”
Do you think critics were too hard on Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania? Let us know in the comments below!