The major changes Marvel has already made to MCU phase 4, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania's release date could still change, too.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania will see the previous films' core cast returning, headlined by two pairs of Ant-Man and Wasps: Scott Lang (Paul Rudd), Hope Van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly), Hank Pym (Michael Douglas), and Janet Van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer). It's also confirmed that Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors), the MCU's next major villain first introduced in LOKI, will make an appearance. Not much is known about the film's plot yet, but given the title, it's likely that the film will feature an expedition into the quantum realm introduced by the previous Ant-Man installments.
Ant-Man and the Wasp's scheduling highlights a big MCU Phase 4 issue. Marvel has delayed its Phase 4 movies many times over the past year, for a variety of reasons that could range from the pandemic to other production issues. And, with the launch of Disney+ and a new era of MCU shows, there's more Marvel content than ever for both the creative teams and audiences to keep track of. The huge gap between Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania's production wrap and its release shows how fragile and intricate the Cinematic Universe has become, and serves as a reminder of how easily it could all fall apart.
This latest Ant-Man installment began filming in early 2021, and a recent announcement from spoilers, as with Guardians of the Galaxy 3.
A small delay or change in one corner of the MCU's vast world can quickly snowball into a disaster because of its very interconnectedness, necessitating story changes to films that may already be in production. Something like this supposedly occurred when the order of Spider-Man: No Way Home and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness was switched. Marvel's tightly controlled model to keep everything connected could also inhibit the development of future films, as these stories would be beholden to a complex, ever-changing web of what comes before. The MCU has always thrived on building stories between its various characters and films, but with so much more on the slate in Phase 4 between all the movies and TV shows, and a literal canonical multiverse, that fabric could be starting to unravel.
is one title whose release date seems pretty well set, for now. While the specifics of how Phase 4 will pan out are still in flux, it all seems to be building towards a Kang the Conqueror arc, which Majors's role in the Ant-Man film confirms. Nevertheless, the long gap between Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania's filming wrap and its release date still emphasizes how delicate Marvel's plans have become, and points to a potential problem with the MCU's Phase 4 slate.
