From the moment its release date was announced, Ant-Man and the Wasp was in a pickle. On one hand, coming so soon after Avengers: Infinity War, it needed to pump the brakes and give fans a breather before the finale in 2019. On the other, it also needed to be big and loud and exciting enough to not totally kill the momentum of Infinity War (even though it took place before the events of the massive crossover event).
Although I though Ant-Man and the Wasp director Peyton Reed did an admirable job, all things considered, he opted not to use any of the other toys in the Marvel toy chest like he did in the first Ant-Man movie when Falcon joined in on the fun. But in an early draft, a founding Avenger did make a cameo appearance.
“The idea was that this really wanted to be a little bit more standalone and in its own world,” Peyton Reed told RadioTimes.com in regards to his decision to stay away from cameos in the sequel. “We knew that we wanted to continue the story of these characters and then introduce our own characters that were really far more relevant to the story we were telling. Plus the fact that we were coming right after Infinity War, which is really like everyone. With the exception of Ant-Man and the Wasp and, of course, Hawkeye.”
Though Ant-Man and the Wasp did end up being cameo-less, Reed revealed that an early draft of the script had Captain America appear in a flashback scene narrated by Luis (Michael Peña). Luis would have recapped the events of Captain America: Civil War, in which Ant-Man played a small (but important) role.
“Early on, we had a version where we were going to do a quick version of the tarmac fight from Civil War, with some ridiculous thing where, you know, Captain America has Ant-Man as a baseball and throws him,” Reed said. “Because the whole thing is Luis’ version of events, right? We came up with all these ridiculous visuals.”
Sadly, the scene was never shot, so we won’t even get to see it in the DVD extras. But now all I can think about is Luis recapping every Marvel movie, because his version of Infinity War would be utterly insane.
