‘Quantumania’ Writer Implies There’s No Real Plan For Phase 5 And Beyond: “We Are In The Process Of Figuring That Out”

John F. Trent |

Feb 24, 2023

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania writer Jeff Loveness recently revealed that Marvel Studios doesn’t have a plan for Phase 5 and they are just winging it.

Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter in a lengthy interview about Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Loveness was asked, “So moving forward, will the big bad be a revolving door of Kang variants, or will an alpha soon emerge if he hasn’t already?”

Loveness responded, “I think I’ve already been killed by Feige for even taking this interview. (Laughs.) But we are in the process of figuring that out. I am so far behind on my Avengers script, but I’ll tell you when we’ve got it figured out.”

Ironically, after revealing he and Marvel Studios don’t actually have a plan, he claims they do, “We’ve got a plan and we’ve got a story, but the goal right now, without giving too much away, is to show the true versatility and passion that Jonathan Majors has.”

“I truly feel like I’m the luckiest guy in the world because I get to write for the most exciting young actor that I’ve seen in a long, long time. And so the short answer is that I can’t say anything, but the big answer is that Kang is a legion,” he continued.

“So let’s see what that legion is like, and let’s get great character performances from the best actor around right now,” he concluded.

When asked a follow-up on where he was at with his script for Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, he answered, “t’s hard to even say. I think I’m in the jet-lag stage of a press tour, but we’re working on it. Destin [Daniel Cretton] is incredible. I’ve had conversations with Jonathan about where he wants to take the character, so it’s still very early days.”

“We’ve got like 40 more movies to go before I get there, but we’ve certainly got a plan. We’re all very excited for the story that we’re laying down, so now it’s just on me and my ADHD and my procrastination and all that. So, hopefully, Kevin doesn’t read this. If he is, hey, Kevin. I’m doing great. The pages are just flowing, man. (Laughs.) It’ll be there next week,” he concluded.

(L-R): Jonathan Majors as Kang The Conqueror in Marvel Studios' ANT-MAN AND THE WASP: QUANTUMANIA. Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios. © 2022 MARVEL.

Aside from not having plan, Loveness also revealed he doesn’t actually care about how the Quantum Realm works, how time travel works, or how the “magic” of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s multiverse works. All of these are things you would think would be incredibly important for a writer to actually know and care about when writing films in what Marvel is describing as their Multiverse Saga.

Nevertheless, Loveness told The Hollywood Reporter when asked about how much time passed for the character in the real world when they were in the Quantum Realm, “Ooh, we may have to pick this up in another movie, but we didn’t play too much with time dilation in this one.”

“I would say all that time dilation stuff might be more in the upper strata, which is where those ants fell through. They fell through it and went through a thousand years or something. The Avengers were also doing it in those upper-strata levels, and so I think the realm we were playing with was a bit more of a limbo space,” he continued.

Loveness then stated, “We’ve already played that card in Endgame, so we just wanted more of a contained adventure without having to check your watch the whole movie for how much time has gone by.”

“The better question is how long was Janet actually down there with Kang? Was it 30 years, or was it this endless amount of hell time? But I’ll leave that for Reddit,” he concluded. “They can have fun with it because I don’t really care. (Laughs.)”

Clearly audiences are making it clear they don’t care as well as the film’s opening weekend box office was far short of Marvel’s most recent releases in 2022, which also underperformed previous films in their franchises.

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania has only grossed $131.3 million domestically and $160.1 million internationally for a global gross of $291.5 million.

The film has also has the third worst user rating for all Marvel Cinematic Universe films on IMDb with a 6.5.