Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania Director Peyton Reed on Making Kang and Why Romantic Comedy Isn’t Dead on the Big Screen – Crew Call Podcast

I have to admit, but Josh Brolin’s big bad Thanos casts a huge shadow in the older Marvel movies.

But now there’s Kang the Conqueror by Jonathan Majors, debuting as the He Who Remains variant on Disney+ Loki and spikes in all testosterone this weekend Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, which is poised to debut to a record $280 million worldwide franchise. The trigger for all this? Why is it all Kang.

The film’s director, Peyton Reed, tells us how the whole kang came about on Crew Call today.

You can listen to our chat below:

Essentially the progression to Kang in the MCU and ant man began with the starting point of Michelle Pfeiffer’s Janet Van Dyne and what she was up to in the Quantum Realm, that sector that appeared in the previous 2018 episode Ant-Man and the Wasp. It led Reed, Marvel boss Kevin Feige and ant man Producer Stephen Broussard to turn their attention to “Mount Rushmore of Marvel Comics villain, Kang the Conqueror,” Reed explained.

Granted, it’s a “one-sided showdown” between Ant-Man, his friends, and Kang, according to Reed, “but there was a dramatic showdown in there.”

“Let’s beat Scott Lang up a bit,” he adds.

The other attraction of Kang and Janet? It came down to “the secrets families keep from each other… She didn’t tell them she met Kang!” says the filmmaker.

Reed sheds light on the casting of majors for the role of Kang, the “beast of a scene” involving multiple Paul Rudds, and the future of the romantic comedy on the big screen; The director is behind such blockbuster benchmarks as Bring it on And The Separation.

Despite the genre’s migration to streaming, “there’s no way romantic comedy is dead,” says Reed.

“I don’t know if this young generation has their flagpole,” he adds, “but there is a version of a romantic comedy that will draw in audiences.”