‘Ant-Man and the Wasp’ Original Ending: Evangeline Lilly Was “Grateful” It Didn’t Make the Final Cut

Ant-Man and the Wasp original ending

Ant-Man and the Wasp isn’t a movie filled with important universe-altering events. There were plenty of those in Avengers: Infinity War, and director Peyton Reed made the smart decision of not trying to compete with that gargantuan effort; instead, he made a smaller scale film that’s easily one of the funniest films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

But one of the ways the movie does tie in to the studio’s larger tapestry is in its mid-credits scene. In a new interview, star Evangeline Lilly has revealed that the Ant-Man and the Wasp original ending was slightly different than the one we saw in theaters, and she’s “grateful” the version they shot didn’t make it into the final cut.

Warning: spoilers ahead for Ant-Man and the Wasp.

Everything is going smoothly during the mid-credits scene – that is, until Thanos snaps his fingers off screen, turning Hope van Dyne, the recently-retrieved Janet van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer), and Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) into dust, which leaves Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) trapped in the Quantum Realm.

In a new interview with ScreenRant, Lilly explains that instead of showing their disappearance off screen, Reed originally shot Hank, Janet, and Hope being physically dissolved in the same manner as the other characters at the end of Infinity War. Except, according to Lilly, it wasn’t exactly in the same manner:

“We shot ourselves being dissolved. There was actually a– They just took it out in the end. It was more dramatic, I think. He just cut back to floating ash and empty space…And I have to tell you, I’m so grateful that they did cut that out. Because at that point I have not seen Avengers: Infinity War. So, I had really no idea what a dusting looked like, or felt like, or what’s supposed to be, and I don’t think Peyton [Reed] really did either. … Once I watched Avengers: Infinity War, I realized I dusted terribly. I did a really bad job of that. I had no idea really what was happening. And I’m so glad that they cut it out because I don’t think I would have been convincing at all. I think I made it look much more like an ascension to heaven than a torturous end.”

Reed has previously talked about how he wanted the scene to punch audiences in the gut, so it seems as if he at least had a general notion of what Thanos’ snap would mean for the larger MCU. But it sounds like the specifics of how characters reacted may have been either unknown to Reed at the time he shot this sequence or maybe even worked out later by the Russos. Aside from a few clunky attempts along the way, Marvel has typically been pretty good about connecting its films, and you’d think Kevin Feige – who produced Infinity War and the Ant-Man sequel – could have passed down some insight into the specifics of how characters should react to Thanos’ snap.

Maybe the Russos were still been tweaking aspects of Infinity War long after Reed filmed this original Ant-Man and the Wasp ending. Either way, the final version ended up delivering the punch the director hoped.

Ant-Man and the Wasp is available on home video now.

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