A Fake Ant-Man 3 Script Would've Made MCU History, But Now It's Too Late
Peyton Reed's 2023 superhero film "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania" saw the title heroes (Paul Rudd and Evangeline Lilly), and a few compatriots, using an extraordinary sci-fi device to shrink down so infinitesimally small they enter a microscopic dimension called the Quantum Realm. In the Quantum Realm, they find a whole civilization of bizarre humanoid and non-humanoid creatures, as well as the evil rising empire of a villainous tyrant named Kang (the recently-fired Jonathan Majors). Kang had been imprisoned in the Quantum Realm, and if he can escape, he would cause mayhem in the normal-sized world. "Quantumania" was expensive to make and wasn't terribly well-received, marking a definite downturn in the seemingly unending success of the long-running Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Seeing as "Quantumania" was the 31st feature film to come out of the MCU, a pattern was already in place, and Marvel Studios remained as secretive as usual in protecting plot points and scripts from leaking to the public. It has long been common Hollywood practice for studios to author fake scripts for their more anticipated blockbusters, confusing any potential script thieves with decoys. Naturally, some fans might be just as eager to read a decoy script as they would be to see an original, but the decoys allow real film productions to operate under a more protective blanket of security.
Sadly, this post is not about the decoy script that Marvel likely commissioned for "Quantumania," but a winking prank played by the film's screenwriter, Jeff Loveness. Back in a 2021 tweet, Loveness claims to have taken a photo of the decoy "Quantumania" script, although it was clearly tongue-in-cheek, given the outsize cocktail pictured in the photo's foreground (an Old Fashioned, from the looks of it). The "fake" script is so much better.
The MCU blip
In the MCU movies, there was a five-year "Blip" wherein half of the universe's population was missing from existence. In 2020, the MCU experienced a "Blip" of its own thanks to COVID-19 lockdowns. 2020 was the first year since 2008 that didn't see the theatrical release of at least one Marvel film. On television, only one Marvel-related series was released, and it was the no-one-remembers-it stinker "Helstrom."
In this gulf of Marvel shows and movies, Loveness decided to throw fans a bone. Once Marvel films started to pick up again in 2021, Loveness published a fake page of the upcoming "Quantumania" film, featuring a scene wherein Ant-Man claims to be a Messiah to a talking ant. The page has a silly "It's Morbin' Time" vibe to it. The fake scene was as follows:
EXT. ANT HILL
Ant-Man is there. He's about to go small.
Ant-Man: "I'm gonna go small now."
Ant: "No, Ant-Man. Don't! That's too small."
Ant-Man: "F*** you. Even smaller now."
Ant: "Please ... Please, no."
He does. The ant weeps.
Ant-Man: "Say I am your Christ."
Ant: [Inaudible over ant weeps]
Ant-Man: Say it.
Needless to say, this exchange does not appear in the final version of "Quantumania."
But Ant-Man's Ant-Christ complex may have been a far more interesting story to explore than the one involving interdimensional villains. Witnessing Ant-Man, one of the MCU's less impressive heroes, becoming corrupted by his power would allow the MCU to explore a world of dubious gods who are unfettered by regulation or conventional morality.
Had the above script been made, it would have been the MCU's first instance of the word "f***". Given how aggressively PG-13-rated the MCU is, it's notable when someone cusses. The first F-bomb honor eventually went to "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3."