The following article contains spoilers forAnt-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.Amidst a wave of rumors regarding last-minute changes toAnt-Man and the Wasp: Quantumaniaplot, one of Marvel Studios' leading voices in the VFX department has come out to deny such claims by saying the story fans saw in theaters was always the movie’s intended ending.
Since its release,Ant-Man 3has endured a tough time with critics and audiences, quickly tyingEternalsas the worst-reviewed Marvel Studios movie and, despite faring much better with fans, failing to match the ticket sales obtained by its predecessor,Ant-Man and the Wasp. That backlash led some insiders to speculate whetherAnt-Man 3could have featured a different outcomefor Scott Lang and Kang the Conqueror because the film included some reshoots a month before it came out.
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In an interview withIndieWire, Marvel Studios' VFX production supervisor Jesse James Chisholm fired back against those claims when asked about it. “Our third act didn’t change since photography to the end,” he said. “So it was always massive, all it did was get compacted. But there was no new storyline. We had a solid construct of the film.” The piece notes that besides Disney’s trusted special effects studio Industrial Light & Magic, at least seven other VFX firms worked onQuatumania’s CGI, which has been criticized after the studio allocated some of its valuable resources toBlack Panther: Wakanda Forever.
Chisholm, a former employee at Digital Domain, one of the studios that worked onAnt-Man 3, commented on the working conditions at such companies. “Marvel is always looking to make their films better. If I’ve made something that looks amazing and it just falls flat, they’re gonna ditch it and try and find [something] that works better,” he said, calling this line of work challenging and tough. Funnily enough, one of the most debated topics aboutAnt-Man 3,its comedic take on MODOK, was among the parts of the movie that took the most work, with Chisholm saying, “For me, I love where we landed.”
While the alleged alternate ending forAnt-Man and the Wasp:Quantumaniaapparently involved Scott and Hope not making it out of the Quantum Realm and even Kang possibly escaping his interdimensional confinement, Chisholm says that was never an option, meaningAnt-Man 3was intended to end the way it did all along. FormerRick and MortywriterJeff Loveness has jumped to defend hisAnt-Man 3script in several media outlets, but overall it’s clear the film did not land as well as past MCU stories.
Marvel fans must wait untilLokiseason 2 to see if Kang’s destiny inAnt-Man 3is vindicated. However, there won’t be another movie to compareAnt-Man 3withuntilGuardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3comes outin two months.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumaniais now playing in theaters.
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