Kevin Feige Explains How 'Ant-Man And The Wasp' Plays With The Rules Of The Quantum Realm

Many fans believe that the Quantum Realm may be the key to the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. At the core of Ant-Man and the Wasp is a rescue mission to the Quantum Realm. The advertising has shown us that Michelle Pfeiffer's character Janet Van Dyne has aged while living in this sub-atomic world. So what are the rules of the Quantum Realm? Marvel head Kevin Feige gave us some clues, which leads up to Avengers 4 and the future of the MCU.

(Spoilers for Avengers: Infinity War coming up. We also discuss the Ant-Man and the Wasp marketing, but no film spoilers.)

Ant-Man introduced the concept of the Quantum Realm to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Michael Douglas' character Hank Pym explains that if you shrink to a level that is subatomic, you will enter "a reality where all concepts of time and space become irrelevant as you shrink for all eternity." At the time, we thought this was a set-up for Doctor Strange, but now everyone is speculating that the Quantum Realm could have a big part in the yet to be titled Avengers 4.

Now that half the people on earth have disappeared with the snap of Thanos' fingers, it seems like our heroes must go back in time to correct this horrific future from happening. Time travel was introduced into the MCU with the time stone in Doctor Strange, but Thanos is in possession of that Infinity Stone and who even knows what power it has after the snap. Many fans speculate that the Quantum Realm may be the key to everything – if time is irrelevant in the Quantum Realm, then maybe our heroes can use this as their own time machine.

And while Ant-Man and the Wasp provides us with some more details about the Quantum Realm, I'm not going to spoil any of the plot here. We know going in that Hank and his daughter Hope are trying to rescue Michelle Pfeiffer's Janet Van Dyne (the original Wasp) from the Quantum Realm, and the TV spots have shown us that Janet is alive in that world and has aged, just as Hank has aged in our plane of existence.

So when I talked to Kevin Feige, I asked him about this.

Peter: Okay.  In Ant-Man and the Wasp, we get to see more of the Quantum Realm.  I was kind of under the impression that time does not go by in the same way in the Quantum Realm as it does here, but...

Kevin: She aged.

Peter: She aged.  So I was wondering what's up with that?Kevin: Much like quantum mechanics itself, it is all very complicated.  And it is...there are various [areas] you notice in this film. Scott Lang says meet me in the Wastelands beyond the Void.  There are various levels that we check in on.  So there are many, many different layers to the Quantum Realm.Peter: So there are layers that time does not pass by?Kevin: That's what they've told us.  They've told us that it, time and physics and space work very differently down there.  That was a big question during the development process.  And as usual, you're the first one to pick on it a little bit, which is... should she have aged or not?  And we felt that new Quantum Realm, we could justify either one.  But that ultimately you wanna have an emotional reunion with Michael Douglas, an emotional reunion with Evangeline Lily and our first instinct had always been specifically now Michelle Pfeiffer from that first movie.  It felt like it should be somebody who's the right age.  As opposed to Michael Douglas with somebody who has not aged.  Or Evangeline Lily connecting with somebody who's not aged.  That just adds another layer of sort of sci-fi weirdness.  Yeah.  And we're not afraid of sci-fi weirdness.  I love it.  But not in that case.Peter: I mean, as evidenced by Guardians and Thor, yeah.Kevin: Right.

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Ant-Man and the Wasp hits theaters on July 7, 2018.