The majority of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania takes place in the quantum realm, which viewers have only seen briefly in previous Marvel films. Now the “bizarro, whacked-out world” gets fully fleshed out by writer and director Peyton Reed, along with his team of visual artists.
Marvel president Kevin Feige said the quantum world was something that had been in production for three and a half years. “We talked about parallels to The Wizard of Oz a lot in terms of taking and meeting a family down there,” according to Feige. “But the visuals, which have been in the works for a very long time, were all Peyton and his team.”
What Inspired The Quantum Realm and Quantumania?
“We looked at everything from electron microscope photography to things like Heavy Metal magazine in the 70s and 80s,” according to Reed. They leaned into the fact that the quantum realm was unknown to audiences, allowing them to create whatever they wanted. “We said just bring some of your most fantastic ideas to the table and let’s figure out what it can be. We want to take these characters that the audience has come to know, and send them on this journey, and traverse these very strange lands and just have fun with it.”
They drew upon inspiration from pop culture, including Flash Gordon, Barbarella, and old science fiction paperbacks from the 60s, 70s, and 80s. “They would be in a newsstand and that cover had to grab you,” according to Reed. ” A lot of them were creating these really strange worlds, that if you were looking at paperbacks, that one would pull you in.”
“There is an entire universe below the surface,” according to Feige. “And it is a place that is on the subatomic level where space and time act differently.”
“It was a part of the MCU that we were free to create on our own,” says Reed. “It was one of the most exciting things about it.”
You can explore the quantum realm when Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is in theaters on February 17, 2023.