The Manure Issue On Ant-Man That Shut Down Production
Trying to act when you're surrounded by green or blue screens can be pretty challenging, but sometimes the efforts to make things feel more tangible can create their own unique problems. On the set of "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania," they had a seriously smelly issue on account of a particular prop element used to make things look more real in the Quantum Realm. While promoting the movie on an episode of "The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon" (via SyFy), Ant-Man himself, Paul Rudd, shared a story about a day on set when the Quantum Realm looked just fine, but the stink was unbearable.
Film sets can occasionally be foul-smelling places, with special effects and pyrotechnics bringing their own brands of unique aromas, combined with what happens when you put lots of people under hot lights in latex costumes (superheroes must use professional-strength deodorant). Be that as it may, what happened on the set of "Quantumania" was both pretty funny and pretty fricking gross.
Messy mounds of manure
While some critics and audiences felt like "Quantumania" was a real stinker, Rudd revealed that on two particular days, filming the movie itself was rather odious. As he told Fallon:
"They try and make it feel as much like the Quantum Realm and we have something to react to. It was crazy to go into these sound stages and it looked like you were in outer space, something wild [...] They try and have as much practical stuff as possible; you really feel like you're on a planet or you're in some weird space. [...] One of the [sets], we went in, and there was dirt all over the floor. We were shooting with like 150 other creatures and people and I was like, 'It doesn't smell good at all.' Throughout the day, it was kind of getting worse and worse, and the next day it was overbearing. We realized they probably got a deal on the dirt because it actually wasn't dirt — it was manure."
Animal poop can be pretty darn smelly on its own, but baking under hot studio lights, it must have been absolutely horrendous. Instead of walking around on dirt, the cast was sullying their shoes with literal dung. Gross!
'The Quantum Realm just reeks!'
Things got so bad that Rudd admitted, "They actually had to shut it down for a day and bring in some new dirt." Well, guess that makes it canonical: When it comes to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, "The Quantum Realm just reeks!" Rudd added.
While it's completely understandable that the folks dressing the set wanted to try and save money where they could to help avoid blowing their budget, it's also kind of wild that they ended up with manure instead of dirt. Maybe regular dirt just didn't look right on camera and they needed something a little clumpier or thicker, which would help explain the decision to go with manure in the first place. We'll never know exactly why the set of "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania" ended up with a smelly soundstage full of animal waste, but at least Rudd got a good talk show story out of it!