Ant-Man 3 Used Mandalorian VFX Tech For Complicated Wasp Action Scene

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania uses the same cutting edge VFX tech as The Mandalorian does for a particularly complicated Wasp moment. Currently the Marvel movie farthest out on the release calendar, Ant-Man 3 is scheduled to debut in July 2023. Once again directed by Peyton Reed, the movie reunites Paul Rudd and Evangeline Lilly as Scott Lang and Hope van Dyne, respectively, for their third big screen adventure. Plot details are still being kept tightly under wraps, but many have hyped it as the best of the Ant-Man series.

Ant-Man 3 will also feature the returns of Michael Douglas and Michelle Pfeiffer. In terms of new cast members, Kathryn Newton boards the MCU as Cassie Lang, taking over from Avengers: Endgame’s Emma Fuhrmann. Ant-Man 3 is also highly anticipated because it carries Jonathan Major’s true MCU debut; he previously appeared in the season finale of Loki as He Who Remains, but with Quantumania, he will finally play Kang the Conqueror. Finally, Bill Murray let slip he’s playing a mystery villain, making him the latest high-profile name to join the franchise.

Little is known about Ant-Man 3 as a whole at this point, but writer Jeff Loveness has shared one exciting detail. During a recent appearance on the I Said No Gifts! podcast (via The Direct), Loveness explained how Quantumania made use of the same StageCraft tech from Industrial Light & Magic that The Mandalorian uses, which essentially projects computer-generated backgrounds onto screens that actors can film against. He described it as “basically a living green screen.” For Ant-Man 3, it really became useful during a scene with Wasp, as Loveness said:

“There was a complicated running sequence where the Wasp, very small, she flies around, she’s going through the forest and the camera’s moving with her and it tracks on the screen, so it just kind of looks like a legitimate shot from the movie, and it’s very jarring to have this gigantic screen moving like a camera.”

Ant-Man 3 isn’t the first non-Mandalorian production to use the Volume. This year’s Thor: Love and Thunder got to indulge in it a bit, and a good number of Disney+’s Star Wars offerings have built upon what The Mandalorian began. Considering how Reed actually worked on The Mandalorian, it isn’t surprising that he would adopt its tech for Quantumania. In fact, he teased the use of the StageCraft technology last year. For Ant-Man 3, one can imagine how the semi-real backdrops could go a long way in helping out with the sequences where one of its heroes are extra small. They likely created a forest that looked massive around the normal-sized Lilly, perhaps taking away the need to CGI a tiny version of her against the needed backdrop.

It’ll certainly be interesting to see how The Mandalorian‘s technology translates to the big screen and the Marvel universe. The Ant-Man films require a high level of VFX between its shrinking characters and its forays into the Quantum Realm, and if this one goes bigger than the previous installments have, there should be some really thrilling moments for fans to enjoy. Ant-Man 3 is still well over a year away, but excitement is already growing.