ANT-MAN AND THE WASP: QUANTUMANIA
The Abridged Script
FADE IN:
EXT. SAN FRANCISCO
PAUL RUDD and MICHAEL PENA are walking happily down the sun-drenched streets.
MICHAEL PENA
Oh wow so much has happened since Endgame, I gotta tell you all about it! Cue montage! First, Paul wrote a book-
PAUL RUDD
(shrinks Michael to Tylenol-size, swallows him)
Sorry buddy, I'm taking over narrative duty for this one. Why would we include the single most memorable feature of the first two movies, anyway? Ha ha ha.
(continues walking)
So yeah I wrote a best-selling book, and apparently Marvel published it for real in the real world, which sounds like a great idea unless you're the poor sap who has to stretch twenty seconds of quotes into a whole-ass book. But everything's super and awesome and wonderful!
EVANGELINE LILLY
Meanwhile I'VE been busy with
PAUL RUDD
(shrinks Evangeline to pocket-size, glues her to edge of frame)
AAAAaaand let's just leave you there for the duration okay? What Evangeline was ABOUT to say is, her character's been busy doing lots of science, and building upon established scientific knowledge, to do good science things! Mostly we just took all the complaints online about how Pym Particles could help fix tons of real-world problems and started doing that. So to conclude, everything is one million per cent hunky dory!
(phone rings)
EMMA FUHRMANN
(on phone)
Hi Dad, I'm in jail. Again. Also I'm Kathryn Newton now for whatever reason.
PAUL RUDD
Um, okay, eight hundred fifty-three thousand, two hundred and seven percent hunky dory. But working on it!
INT. STATELY ANT-FAM MANOR
PAUL bails out KATHRYN NEWTON and they have dinner with MICHAEL DOUGLAS and MICHELLE PFIEFFER! and evangeline lilly
PAUL RUDD
Should I be concerned about Kathryn stealing and shrinking police cars and shit? Like, I think that's the kind of thing that eventually gets you in slight trouble, right?
KATHRYN NEWTON
Geez, Dave Bluetista tried to flat-out murder cops in his Christmas special and HE'S still a good guy...
MICHAEL DOUGLAS
Never mind all that! The important thing is I've been giving Kathryn ant-tech behind your back and we've been fucking around with the Quantum Realm. You know, where Michelle was trapped 30 years and you were trapped five years. I thought it was the perfect thing for your daughter to do experiments on!
KATHRYN NEWTON
It's true, I've built a machine that sends a signal into the Quantum Realm. Which is only a problem I guess if there's some uber-supervillain down there who's been waiting decades for an opportunity to escape...
MICHELLE PFIEFFER
(doing 50,000 guilty twitches per second)
UM YEAH MAYBE WE COULD TURN THAT OFF JUST BECAUSE
But it's TOO LATE! Suddenly our heroes, along with some random ants and other junk in the room, are dramatically SUCKED IN to the device and MICROSCOPIFIED, plummeting downwards and smallwards, eventually landing in STRANGE WORLD SPY KIDS 3 THE QUANTUM REALM!!
EXT. STAR TREK PRODIGY THE QUANTUM REALM
PAUL biggifies his suit, cushioning KATHRYN'S landing!
PAUL RUDD
Huh, seems like making us microscopic has also handily recalibrated our Pym Particles and our suits' software, so that it makes things big/small proportional to our environment. Which seems a bit bullshit but-
KATY O'BRIAN
(appearing)
Freeze! So we should be the Micronauts but we're not, thank Hasbro for that. Instead we are the Random-Post-Its-Swiped-Off-The-Writers'-Idea-Board Squadron! Call us the Micro-Nots if you must. Anyway you're coming with us!
EXT. ELSEWHERE IN COOL WORLD THE QUANTUM REALM
Meanwhile MICHAEL and MICHELLE and evangeline have landed in a "DIFFERENT" part of the QUANTUM REALM.
MICHELLE PFIEFFER
We need to get out of here fast as possible. We're all in horrible danger!
EVANGELINE LILLY
You mean danger from government brainwashing and
MICHELLE PFIEFFER
WHAT AM I REFERRING TO, YOU ASK? Look, there's a lot I didn't tell you about when I was stuck here for 30 years. Especially... about HIM.
MICHAEL DOUGLAS
What exactly didn't you tell me?
MICHELLE PFIEFFER
A lot! A whole lot of stuff I didn't say, particularly about... HIM. I can't even say... HIS name!
MICHAEL DOUGLAS
Whose?!
MICHELLE PFIEFFER
HIS!! Look, there's no time! No time at all! We must make a long-distance trek to find multiple allies of mine, while with every single step I insist this isn't the time to tell you... about HIM.
MICHAEL DOUGLAS
Hm.
Eventually they find a DESERT HEX where MICHELLE acquires new CLOTHES and some GEAR and a new SHIP from some RANDO in exchange for KICKING THEIR ASS which is a deal that would probably work for some folk even outside THE QUANTUM REALM.
EXT. MICRO-NOTS HIDEOUT
PAUL and KATHRYN are dragged into the HIDEOUT and forced to drink DISGUSTING OOZE and charged NINE DOLLARS EACH for it, no wonder people don't go to theatres anymore.
KATY O'BRIAN
Now that you've drunk the secretions of my blob friend, you can understand all languages of the Quantum Realm! You sure don't want to miss any of THIS dialogue.
LASER-HEAD CREATURE
Hello! I'm a Pixar lamp who took super-soldier serum.
WILLIAM JACKSON HARPER
And I'm a telepath, so it might have made more sense that people had to drink MY fluids to understand all languages, but that didn't test well.
(mindreads)
Oh shit they're with Michelle Pfieffer! That means... HE... is looking for them! They've led... HIM... right to us!!
KATHRYN NEWTON
Um no, YOU guys brought us here against our will, so YOU led... HIM... oh for fuck's sake how long are we doing this? We all know it's Kang, the ads and promo materials and interviews and everything are KANG KANG KANG why are we being so damn coy??
EVIL ROBO-MINIONS
(attacking, capturing people)
ALERT, ALERT, COYNESS MUST BE MAINTAINED. NOW WE TAKE YOU TO... DRAMATIC PAUSE... HIM
INT. MEANWHILE AT THE FUCKING SCI-FI BAR THAT FUCKING EXISTS BECAUSE EVERY SCI-FI SETTING HAS TO HAVE A BAR REGARDLESS OF WHETHER THAT MAKES ANY GODDAMN SENSE, I MEAN EVEN THE ORIGINAL TRON HAD ONE SO WHY SHOULDN'T THIS
Our other heroes arrive at THE FUCKING BAR and fuck around with GOOFY BEINGS and BILL MURRAY and get some OOZE and BACKSTORY that could just as easily have come from the MICRO-NOTS but NOOOPE WE GOTTA SEND SOME CHARACTERS TO THIS HALF-ASSED CANTO BIGHT BULLSHIT GODDAMN IT TO FUCK let's just go to a new scene.
INT. "HIS" EVIL LAIR SOMEWHERE IN RICK AND MORTY THE QUANTUM REALM
PAUL and KATHRYN are in STAR TREK JAIL as they come face-to-face with a STupid Oversized Levitating Ludicrous-thing, or S.T.O.L.L.!
S.T.O.L.L.
Yep it's me, Corey Stoll from Ant-Man One, I'm MODOK now! Can you believe they actually tried this shit?
PAUL RUDD
Wow. You look like the Jason Alexander hoodie from that Super Bowl Doritos commercial.
KATHRYN NEWTON
You look like something that George Lucas replaced a practical puppet effect with in 2002.
PAUL RUDD
You look like the braces kid from Finding Nemo tapping on the glass, as seen by the fish inside the tank.
(check out the Author's Cut for way more of these!)
S.T.O.L.L.
SILENCE! It is time for you to face... HIM. In fact, here... HE... comes. Just a-walking down... HIS... street. Popping... HIS... fingers and shuffling... HIS...
JONATHAN MAJORS
(interrupting)
YES YES hello it's me, Kang, we can use my name now, and nobody needs to act all mysterious as to my identity ever again. Welcome, Paul.
PAUL RUDD
Wait, who are you? I don't get Disney Plus, so...
JONATHAN MAJORS
Not to worry, happy to explain my origins! You see, I'm a scientist from the future who has tons of ultratech and was minding my own business, just happily conquering the known universe, when I was trapped here by... THEM aw fuck I thought we were done being all cagey.
PAUL RUDD
And how does Evangeline's mother figure into all this? How did you meet her?
JONATHAN MAJORS
WELL NOT THROUGH SOME STUPID BLUE FRENCH HORN I'LL TELL YA THAT MUCH, TEAM MILIOTI FOREVER ahem, sorry. Michelle found my crash site and helped me repair just enough stuff to conquer the Quantum Realm, but not quite enough to escape to the embiggened world. Which is where YOU come in!
(smiles evilly)
Michelle explodabiggismallified the critical power thingie that I need. Only you and your Ant-tech can retrieve it.
PAUL RUDD
Isn't your far-future-tech way more advanced than mine? Can't you just take the shrinky-growy component of my suit and use it yourself instead of
JONATHAN MAJORS
ONLY YOU CAN RETRIEVE IT. I think we're trying to link back to when you were a thief and shit, as desperate as it may seem.
PAUL RUDD
I'll never help you!
(pause)
(pause)
...Okay, this is where you offer to re-set my timeline so I don't miss five years of my daughter's life, like in the trailer. Thus turning one of my strengths, my fatherly love, against me in a cruel yet exquisite irony of
JONATHAN MAJORS
Huh? No I'll just murder Kathryn if you don't do what I want.
PAUL RUDD
Really? But you offered Michelle a new timeline if she helped, why not me? I thought timelines was your whole thing, just outright threatening loved ones is kind of basic level, not to mention Thanos did it like 4000 times so I really thought we'd move on to
JONATHAN MAJORS
JUST DO THE THING RUDD.
They take PAUL to the explodabiggismallified THINGIE and he JUMPS IN!
INT. CGI RENDERING TESTING ENVIRONMENT
PAUL finds the THINGIE but immediately starts SPLITTING into MULTIPAUL RUDDS!
PAUL RUDD
Oh fuck! I'm in a probability storm, where each of my decisions (above a certain threshold I guess, since taken literally, there'd be a million of me already) splits into a new me for each option going forward!
BASKIN-ROBBINS UNIFORM PAUL RUDD
What the fuck choice could you possibly have made, now, for me to happen?
PAUL RUDD
Literally none! But come on guys, even though you should all be equally me, I'm still primary for whatever reason. Let's work together like a REAL ant colony to get the thingie!
The HUNDRUDDS AND HUNDRUDDS create a giant WORLD WAR Z PILE that allows PAUL to struggle and clutch his way slowly upwards!
PAUL RUDD
(struggling)
I really wish we'd put wings on MY suit.
EVANGELINE LILLY
I have wings! Take my hand and we'll form a convoy to freedom, putting an end to all lockdowns and
PAUL RUDD
WOW SOMEHOW I DID IT! I'm coming Kathryn!!
The THINGIE unexplodasmallibiggifies and winds up as a small ORB in PAUL'S hands.
PAUL RUDD
Don't suppose I have time to switch this out for a Troll doll real quick...
JONATHAN MAJORS
NOPE!
(grabs orb)
I flick you aside, thusly! Then I'll freeze Michelle, and take her back to my lair while you all please forget that's an ability I have.
PAUL RUDD
Damn, Jonathan has the thingie, Kathryn, AND Michelle! Now there's just two of us, we're hopelessly outnumbered.
MICHAEL DOUGLAS
Not true! The ants that got microscopified with us arrived thousands of years earlier, they've evolved into a whole civilization and are ready to help.
PAUL RUDD
(blinks)
Shit it's lucky none of us landed thousands of years apart, and that large-world time is running at the same rate as us, unlike in Endgame. But hey, yay ants!
MICHAEL DOUGLAS
...Of course this now means the ants were already here when Michelle was trapped and really should have rescued her before Majors even showed up, but that would be a whole new timeline that would REALLY have started back when they arrived and REALLY they shouldn't be here in THIS timeline at all but ohhhh fuck all of Phase 5 is gonna be like this.
INT. JONATHAN'S HQ — THAT HALF-LIFE LEVEL EVERYONE HATES THE QUANTUM REALM
Meanwhile KATHRYN, serving no further purpose, has been MURDERED left alone with only TWO GUARDS and ESCAPES! She rescues the equally un-murdered KATY and they use the local internet to launch a KICK (JOHN MAJOR'S ASS) STARTER!
S.T.O.L.L.
Not so fast! Jonathan said I'm finally allowed to try killing you, ha ha! Plus I've got chainsaws AND lasers so that I can totally miss at both short AND long range.
KATHRYN NEWTON
Oh shit! How am I gonna...
But just then she hears the THUNDERING FOOTSTEPS of TALL RUDD coming to the rescue!
KATHRYN NEWTON
That's it!! I should use the biggening power of our tech, the thing we constantly do! Gosh I hope this works the way it did the last 300 times!
(embiggens)
(stomps Corey)
S.T.O.L.L.
Ow! Oof! Hm, I still have chainsaws and you've just made your arteries and tendons huge, impossible-to-miss targets...
KATHRYN NEWTON
Do you really think the MCU is gonna go THERE.
S.T.O.L.L.
Fuck, you're right. So now what the hell am I supposed to do?
KATHRYN NEWTON
You could always try being a good guy instead. We accepted good Loki, so you'd be golden.
S.T.O.L.L.
I dunno, did you see The Strain?
KATHRYN NEWTON
Yeesh, good point. Maybe just lie there and die.
TALL RUDD
(clomping through city)
HEY JOHNNY, COME FIGHT ME!! Haha this is an obvious distraction while my REAL plan
(checks notes)
Wait this is my real plan? I thought I was supposed to be even a little smart.
(bombarded with lasers)
OW OW OW OW
EVANGELINE LILLY
vax, ew! vax, ew!
TALL RUDD
UM YES, ZAP ZAP PEW PEW, zap those enemy ships Evangeline!
JONATHAN MAJORS
Prepare yourselves my army! The thingie, which I needed at full power just to rescue myself, will soon take us all to the macroscopic world!
ASSORTED QUANTUMREALMIANS
(attacking)
WE HATE YOU JONATHAN! YOU PUT TRON LEGACY IN OUR PHANTOM MENACE
(wrecking shit)
JONATHAN MAJORS
Okay fine.
(casually walks out shooting hand-lasers)
EAT DEATH RAY YOU FUCKS
(murdering 3.6 people per second)
DEATH RAY DEATH RAY DEATH RAAAAYYYYYYY oh shit, main characters!
(death ray spontaneously jams itself up own ass)
PAUL RUDD
That's right, NOW you face the combined might of Ant-Man, the Wasp, and... let's see...
(checks wiki, muttering)
...Stinger, Stature, Giant-Girl... meh...
(loudly)
...and MY DAUGHTER! Let's get'im!
They FIGHT but even without the instant-death ray JONATHAN is about to win, WHEN!
MICHAEL DOUGLAS
Ah ha, it's me and the ant civilization, rushing in to save the day just like all the Quantum Residents just did! Please don't effortlessly mow us down like you did with all the Quantum Residents.
JONATHAN MAJORS
AAARGH THORAXES MY ONE WEEAAKNESSS
(overrun by ants, carried off)
MICHELLE PFIEFFER
(on radio)
It's me, Jonathan left me alone with exactly two guards so I escaped! Sure hope Kathryn remembered that "bide your time because eventually you'll be alone with two guards" rule I taught her.
KATHRYN NEWTON
You know it Nana!
MICHELLE PFIEFFER
Yay! So anyway I hurberbled the plugurble of the thingie and opened a portal home, let's go!
They pile into the PORTAL! PAUL is last in line and just before he can go through, it turns out JONATHAN escaped the ANTS by ¯\_(:D)_/¯ and is NOT DONE FOR YET! He BEATS UP PAUL and smashes PAUL'S HELMET all to bits.
PAUL RUDD
Fuck, you broke my Ant-mask, it doesn't work now! I'm powerless to defend myself—
EVANGELINE LILLY
(embiggening)
MASKS DON'T WORK?!? BAH GAWD THAT'S EVANGELINE LILLY'S MUSIC
EVANGELINE ZAPS THE FUCK out of JONATHAN and PAUL PUNCHES HIM into the THINGIE which EXPLODES, SWALLOWING JONATHAN and destroying the PORTAL!
PAUL RUDD
Holy shit Evangeline, your character did something important!! And now we're trapped here which means your choice had actual ramifications, no less! It's quite a cliffhanger to end on but I'm truly impressed with-
KATHRYN NEWTON
(handed scribbled rewrites)
Actually I've re-opened the portal by putting the Quantum Realm co-ordinates, or "QR code" if you will, into my machine. So really we all could have helped and now you can just come back and Evangeline is useless again.
PAUL RUDD
(smiles)
That's more like it.
INT. RESTAURANT — RESHOT EPILOGUE
The ANT-FAM all go out to dinner to celebrate.
PAUL RUDD
Kathryn, I'm sorry that I ditched three movies' worth of being a great Dad to become a jerk, just so we could have a reconciliation arc.
MICHELLE PFIEFFER
And I'M sorry that I never mentioned the catastrophic threat lurking in the Quantum Realm, even when we were gathering energy from it last movie.
MICHAEL DOUGLAS
The important thing is we've learned from that. Which reminds me, are we going to tell the Avengers how Jonathan warned us about all his variants?
EVERYONE
(pisses themselves laughing)
END (OF ALL THE NON-KANG STUFF)
INT. MID-CREDITS SCENE
At some shadowy unknown location, the COUNCIL OF MAJORSES convenes!
LOPAN-ATHAN MAJORS
I think we can all agree this is getting to be some bullshit. We're supposed to be the new big bad, bigger than Thanos, and we've now had two variants killed in their first appearance.
TRON-ATHAN MAJORS
Agreed. Losing to a Loki variant, I can handle. But fucking Ant-Man?!?
ANKH-ATHAN MAJORS
At this rate I'm gonna get shanked by Moon Knight halfway through season 2. We must take action!!
LOPAN-ATHAN MAJORS
Oh we shall, my fellow variants. Soon all of MCU fandom shall quiver at the mere MENTION of...
THE ENTIRE INTERNET
OMG ARE THEY TEASING DOCTOR DOOM
LOPAN-ATHAN MAJORS
Fuck's sake.
END (OF THE ANT-MAN MOVIE YOU PAID TO SEE)
INT. POST-CREDITS SCENE LOKI SEASON TWO CLIP
Early 1900s TOM HIDDLESTON and OWEN WILSON watch a presentation by... JONATHAN MAJORS?!?
JONATHAN MAJORS
Hahaha, between alternate timelines and variants, you'll never be rid of me.
OWEN WILSON
Wow, this has gotta be the longest, most expensive trailer for a Disney Plus show yet! Wow!
TOM HIDDLESTON
Hope everyone out there lives in a country with access to Disney Plus and saw Loki Season One, or good fucking luck understanding any of this.
JONATHAN MAJORS
SHH! I am about to commence my awe-inspiring demonstration, of the staggering invention that I call... TWERKING!
(pause)
I mean, time travel.
TATIANA MASLANY
And good luck catching THAT joke without Disney Plus! Subscribe today!
END