Ant-Man and the Wasp: all the trailers, updates, and commentary for Marvel’s next film

Warning: the following post contains spoilers for the end of Avengers: Infinity War and Ant-Man and the Wasp.

When Marvel’s Ant-Man and the Wasp hit theaters on July 6th, one big question needed to be answered: how would it tie into Avengers: Infinity War? That movie ended with Thanos (Josh Brolin) killing half the universe’s population — including half its superheroes. Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman), Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), Spider-Man (Tom Holland), and many others were reduced to ash, making it unclear how Marvel’s latest movie, released barely a month later, could follow the blockbuster without addressing its massive loss of life.

Ant Man and the Wasp has plenty of laugh-out-loud moments, including a fight that weaponizes a human-sized Hello Kitty Pez dispenser, and a sequence that turns Scott Lang, aka Ant-Man (Paul Rudd), into a kind of adult toddler. In that sequence, he has to visit his daughter’s elementary school to pick up an important bit of tech. He tries to shrink to insect-size to sneak into the building, but the regulator on his costume that lets him change sizes is malfunctioning, and he ends up about three feet tall — child size. He has to put on a child’s sweatshirt and pretend to be a student in order to sneak past the hall monitor. When he finally gets out of the building and into his partners’ waiting SUV, his scientist associate Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) looks at his downsized frame and says, “So do you want a juice box and some string cheese?” Scott looks cranky for a second, but then turns hopeful. “Do you really have those things?” he asks.

Scott’s question is funny in part because the film is all about the juice boxes. Ant-Man and the Wasp cheerfully delivers guilty, sweet pleasures for children of all ages. And in the process, it follows in the footsteps of many superhero narratives before it. There’s a good reason for the long tradition of humorous superheroes — superheroes are kind of ridiculous. And while some fans and creators insist that the genre can handle serious, weighty material, the truth is that superhero stories which acknowledge the conceit’s central improbability are often more sophisticated, and more thoughtful, than their more somber, dark-cowled brethren.

When Peyton Reed stepped in to direct 2015’s Marvel Cinematic Universe movie Ant-Man, he was joining a project that was already in motion. Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz writer-director Edgar Wright had spent years developing the project and co-writing a script with Joe Cornish before leaving in 2014 over the oft-cited “creative differences.” Like Wright, Reed had a career making comedies, including the Jim Carrey vehicle Yes Man, teen comedy Bring It On, and episodes of Mr. Show with Bob and David. His sense of humor and comedic timing paid off, and the movie became a pint-sized hit, grossing more than half a billion dollars worldwide.

When it came time for the sequel, Ant-Man and the Wasp, Reed was the go-to filmmaker from the beginning, and he had plenty of narrative runway to work with. After being introduced in Ant-Man, the character of Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) appeared in Captain America: Civil War, where he took part in the film’s massive airport battle. But when it came to Avengers: Infinity War, Lang was nowhere to be seen, leaving audiences to wonder exactly what he was up to and how Ant-Man and the Wasp would fit into the franchise, given Infinity War’s grim ending. There was also the question of Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly), who received the Wasp costume in the first film’s post-credits scene.

Given the far-ranging, universe-shaking implications of Avengers: Infinity War just a few months ago, it’s hard to remember that there are still stories to be told within the Marvel Cinematic Universe that don’t take place on cosmic stages, or have world-shaking stakes. Ant-Man and the Wasp, the third and final MCU film planned for 2018, jumps back in time and scale from Infinity War. Instead of taking in the fate of every sentient being in existence, it focuses on the attempts to rescue one woman who’s been gone for 30 years. And instead of enlivening suffocating dread with occasional banter, it fully invests in its silly sight gags and endearing humor. It’s a breath of fresh air after Infinity War.

It’s also a breath of fresh air after 2015’s Ant-Man, an enjoyable but messy movie that spent too much time on poorly motivated action sequences, and hinged its big climax on the idea that love is the fifth element that fixes any scientific problem. Ant-Man and the Wasp is flat-out funnier, smarter, more exciting, and better written than Ant-Man. It’s still a minor entry in the Marvel pantheon compared to standouts like Thor: Ragnarok, which went further in upending Marvel’s established superhero-movie template, playing with tone and puncturing the characters’ self-importance. But in a year where the other MCU movies (Black Panther, then Infinity War) trended toward an almost DC-esque grimness, this one is particularly enjoyable because of its comparative lightness, and the way director Peyton Reed gets to stage inventive fights that take full advantage of the Ant-Man growing and shrinking technology.

With all the buzz over the recently released Avengers: Infinity War, it’s been easy to forget that Marvel has another superhero movie coming out this summer. To help audiences remember, the studio has just released a new trailer for Ant-Man and the Wasp.

Like the original teaser from January, the new trailer (which Marvel coyly promoted earlier in the week with an Infinity War star-studded video) shows off plenty of shrinking superhero action by Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) and his new partner, Wasp (Evangeline Lilly). We also get a good look at Ant-Man and the Wasp’s mysterious new foe Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) for the first time. Luis (Michael Peña) aptly wraps up the current state of things to Hank Pym (Michael Douglas): “She stole your tech. Now she wants to take over the world, or whatever.”

It may not have the hype of Black Panther or feature dozens of superheroes packed into a single movie like Avengers: Infinity War, but Marvel Studios does still have a third movie planned for 2018: Ant-Man and the Wasp. And it just got its first teaser trailer today.

Set as a sequel to the 2015’s Ant-Man, Ant-Man and the Wasp once again sees Paul Rudd suit up as the shrinking superhero Ant-Man, this time joined by Evangeline Lilly, who’ll be joining in on the action as Wasp (in case you didn’t quite get that from the title). Also returning is Michael Douglas as Hank Pym, the inventor of the shrinking technology that gives both Ant-Man and the Wasp their powers. Michael Peña will also return as Ant-Man’s scene-stealing star Luis.

Marvel Studios finally took the stage at San Diego Comic-Con today, and president Kevin Feige started things off my talking about the sequel Ant-Man and The Wasp. The standout news was several casting additions: both Michelle Pfeiffer and Laurence Fishburne will be joining the cast.

Pfeiffer be playing the character Janet van Dyne, the wife of inventor Hank Pym, who was played by Michael Douglas in the original film. Van Dyne is an essential character in Marvel lore. She was the original person to take on the moniker of The Wasp, who appeared in a brief flashback sequence in the 2015 film. But in the comics she was even more integral as a founding member of The Avengers themselves. Pfeiffer herself is no stranger to comics adaptation either, famously playing Catwoman and Selina Kyle in Tim Burton’s Batman Returns.

Marvel’s Cinematic Universe has become a template for the entire entertainment industry, with nearly every studio trying to duplicate Marvel’s ability to weave film after film into one serialized, interconnected, long-form narrative. For most other companies, imitating Marvel has been nearly impossible, in large part due to the development and creative process that Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige architects out of the company’s offices on the Disney lot in Burbank, California.

Having originally sprung to life in a small office in West Los Angeles, Marvel Studios now takes up the entire second floor of the sprawling Frank G. Wells building on Disney’s backlot, plus the screening rooms and post-production facilities sprouting up all around the studio to accommodate Marvel’s massive slate. On April 18th, the studio invited a group of journalists into its headquarters for a look behind the scenes at how Marvel movies are designed and brought to life — and we learned a few secrets about upcoming Marvel projects along the way.