The two movies you need to see before Ant-Man and the Wasp are Ant-Man and Captain America: Civil War. Civil War plays a surprisingly large role in Ant-Man and the Wasp since it’s the reason why Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) has been under house arrest for two years, and it’s the reason why Hope Van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly) and Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) have been on the run. But there was a time when it was possible that Hope would make an appearance in Civil War.

Speaking to THR, director Peyton Reed reveals that not only did the Russos wants Giant-Man for Civil War (which Reed was none too pleased about since he wanted that reveal for his sequel), but that they also wanted to throw The Wasp into the middle of the fray:

A lot of people assumed Paul would be in Infinity War, but he wasn't. Was that a request you made, to keep him out of it?

 

It's this shockingly fluid thing. When they were writing Civil War, there was a point where not only were they going to get the Giant-Man debut, but they were going to get the Wasp debut too.

 

That would be too much!

 

Oh yeah, I went nuts "No, we can't do that." And also, there are so many characters in Civil War and also in Infinity War that it became a thing where, you can't have Wasp's coming out party in the movie, because you are only going to be able to devote this much screen time to her and that's what our movie really wanted to be about. Those kinds of things are conversations that happen and they just sort of organically reveal themselves.

Putting Wasp into Civil War would have been a mistake because the character needed time to shine. You can get away with Ant-Man since we’ve already had a full movie to establish him as the lead and his set of powers, but Wasp would feel shoehorned into the final battle. At least when you backdoor a character like Black Panther, you’re giving him a chance to show audiences who he is and what he’s about before sending him off on his solo movie.

What do you think about The Wasp’s potential appearance in Civil War? Would have been too much? Sound off in the comments section.