Quantumania Jeff Loveness Breaks Down Film, Teases Avengers 5 (Exclusive)

02/24/2023 12:00 pm EST

Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania has officially launched Phase 5 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, using Scott Lang as one of its key pieces to a massive puzzle where Kang the Conqueror aims to rule across the multiverse. While Jonathan Majors first debuted in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as a Kang variant known as He Who Remains in the Season 1 finale of Loki, Quantumania is where the Conqueror version of Kang makes his presence felt. It’s hardly the last time we will see Kang as the villain is just getting started. With appearances due in other Marvel titles, Kang will go on to headline Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, serving as the big bad for the fifth Avengers film. 

With the Marvel Cinematic Universe being connected with its story on screen and sending characters from one project to the next, there is similar connection behind-the-scenes. Jeff Loveness made his Marvel Studios debut with Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania, serving as the films writer. Loveness is currently at work on the script for Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, balancing the entire multiverse with his pen. It’s hardly the first time Loveness has worked on a story involving a multiverse, though. Previously, Loveness work on Rick and Morty with the likes of Avengers: Secret Wars and Loki Season 1 writer Michael Waldron, She-Hulk writer Jessica Gao, and Loki Season 2 writer Eric Martin. According to Loveness, he has worked most closely with Waldron since the Rick and Morty alum made their jumps to the MCU, but there is a constant sense of collaboration between the creatives within the franchise. 

Loveness spoke with ComicBook.com in an exclusive interview following the release of Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania. In the spoiler-filled Q&A below, the writer offered his perspective on the messaging packed into Phase 5’s launch title, where it leaves Paul Rudd’s Scott Lang, and what sort of deadly expectations we should have for his Avengers: The Kang Dynasty.

ComicBook.com: You and several writers who have a history with Rick and Morty are all working on this Marvel Cinematic Universe story in the Multiverse Saga. A lot of your stories are going to end up woven together. Have you had a chance to work with Michael Waldron, Eric Martin, or Jessica Gao to collaborate on your Marvel stories?

Jeff Loveness: Maybe specifically Waldron and I the most, because we’re just writing these Avengers movies within a few years of each other. At Marvel, they just have such a deep bench. So, you’ll jump over and talk to Fantastic Four guys, or you’ll see what they’re doing over in Blade or something. It’s good just to keep your eyes on something. 

I think the Rick and Morty thing’s more of a happy accident. I think having a little multiverse shorthand is helpful. But people like Jessica Gao, I mean, she’s a great character writer and a great comedy writer. S,o I think they like TV writers because they’ve got good story structured films. Like, Mr. Nimbus, that Rick and Morty episode, basically was Frasier episode. That is just structured hero’s journey storytelling. That’s a Niles and Frasier dinner party episode. So, I don’t know, I think they just like people who have a grasp on that kind of story circle Harmon, Joseph Campbell stuff, because comic book storytelling certainly uses that macro style as well.

CB: Well, I’m excited to see what you all cook up in this franchise here. 

JL: Namor, man. I’m excited to write Namor.

CB: Quantumania’s Cassie Lang seems to be a representation of apathy versus empathy, and also a message of Avengers meddling in things they are not familiar with. Can you talk about what you wanted? Was there a message you were trying to send about the Avengers and maybe how outmatched they are, yet don’t realize them and stuff like that, maybe through Cassie’s perspective?

JL: Absolutely. I wanted her to represent, I mean, honestly, what Gen Z must be feeling right now. In the movie, it says she was almost murdered by a guy dressed a bee when she was six and she’s had to live in the wreckage of the MCU. She had to live through the Snap, which is so traumatic, and we don’t really talk about what that must have been like for her and how she wants to be like her dad but has now seen her dad sort of coasting a bit in the Rocky 3 phase of his life. And she really does have this idealism and she’s really trying to put herself out there.

But like you see in the movie, it kind of causes more problems. And much like America in the last, oh, maybe 200 years or so, when we try to do something, it has a lot of unintended consequences that ripple out in other places. And just because it’s maybe not happening directly to us, we kind of ignore it. Or maybe it’s on the news for two minutes and we just switch to another tab on YouTube. But I thought Cassie would be a good example to have a flawed, young, idealistic protagonist that really kind of then gets her hands dirty and is able to put the best of her father and then the best of herself out there. And also, just wants to get to team up with the cool warrior lady.

 
CB: I want to talk about the end of the film. We see Kang presumably get killed by (or trapped in) that Multiversal Engine. Can you talk about that final scene with Scott where he’s second-guessing whether Kang is dead and whether he killed the right Kang? What are you trying to tell the audience in that moment where it’s like, “Hold on, this might not be finished yet”?

JL: Again, pulling from the Joseph Campbell story structure or whatever, I always love those stories where they go somewhere, they get challenged and they come back home, but they’re different than they used to be. I thought of Frodo coming back to the Shire, but it’s not quite the same anymore.

Scott Lang starts out carefree. He feels like he’s literally saved the universe. He’s won, he’s got his family back, and he goes through all that. He gets called upon to be a hero again and prove himself. He’s willing to sacrifice himself to save the Multiverse, but his family saves him. So, he comes back through all that. But now he doesn’t have that ease of mind and now he does have that crippling doubt, that as much as he wants to just shut up, have a piece of sh-tty cake and make up for lost time with his daughter by giving her a random birthday, he knows that he can’t quite shake that feeling. And I think it’s interesting, without saying too much, is the guy who literally saved the universe in Endgame might accidentally be the guy who f-cks the multiverse in its next saga. So we’ll see how that plays out.

But I think that is very interesting and it kind of makes him almost this Paul Revere of the Multiverse, a guy who has to warn everybody else. But he had a hard time beating one of these guys, so they’re going to have some problems.

CB: Were there alternate versions of the ending? Were there variant versions where you killed any of the characters or people get stuck in the Quantum Realm? 

JL: Yeah, I mean, certainly in these Marvel rooms and all that, you certainly game out all these stories and you pitch them out, you write them out, and you’re trying to land the best puzzle piece because there’s so many characters in the ensemble. Certainly, you see what people are saying online. But on paper, and then just in your heart, as much as you can see that point about stranding Scott and Hope down there or whatever, at the end of the day, it is just repeating the same beat from the second movie. That just was a hurdle that you couldn’t eventually get over. And then also, it kind of affects Avengers in the same way of, well, then you’re just doing the same exact beat from Endgame as well, getting out of the Quantum Realm and I don’t think that would be a satisfying finale that people maybe think it would be.

But certainly, you go through all these permutations and then at the end of the day though, I think … I don’t want to kill Michael Douglas! At a certain point, it feels expected to kill someone in the third movie and I actually felt the joy of this movie was having a bit of a joyful adventure. Fellowship of the Ring, only one guy died. He kind of deserved it. But you’re not killing off Pippin. Killing off Pippin in Return of the King would’ve just bummed everybody out, man. If Gimli gets his head ripped off by a troll, that’s not going to be great.

But certainly, it’s up in the air but I think for these bloodthirsty fans, there’s a little movie called, Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, I think he’ll bring the heat.

 
CB: Avengers: The Kang Dynasty will be Avengers 5. I’d love to hear about how you’re approaching establishing the new super hero roster and the dynamic between characters and anybody you’re excited to work with. Also, are you going to try to emulate anything from previous Avengers films?

JL: Oh man. I think the Avenger movies … I’d almost go more for the comics. I mean, because the movies have been so fantastic, obviously. But I think Avenger comics are really cool because literally every issue opens with that credo of, “And there came a day unlike any other.” And so the impetus of an Avengers movie or story is like, this is a day where we need these guys, and this is a threat that we cannot handle alone. And this is a seismic shift in the world. This is a generational event. And our old generation is gone or retired or scattered. So it compels a new generation to step up.

Superhero movies are kind of the last movies that all of us watch together. And so it gives us this chance to almost have a Frank Capra story, or it’s almost like the chance to write Independence Day or Men in Black or something. You get to have a bit of a simple, cohesive, generational story and I really don’t take that lightly. So, you get to write a mythological story and all that to say, I’m just talking in circles, but I really want to swing for the fences and I really want to tell a story that you can watch with your cousin, you go on a bad date and watch it somewhere. I want it to be a big American epic in the best sense of the word.”

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What did you think of Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania? Share your thoughts in the comment section or send them my way on Twitter. Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania is now playing in theaters. Avengers: The Kang Dynasty hits theaters on May 2, 2025.

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