Future Ant-Man Movies Could Have Janet Be A Villain

Ant-Man and The Wasp's director confirms they've discussed turning Janet van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer) into a villain. One of the biggest lingering questions from Ant-Man was the status Hank Pym's wife and the original Wasp. Back in the 1980s, Janet was lost as she went subatomic and became a prisoner to the Quantum Realm. But, when Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) returned from there, it gave Hank (Michael Douglas) and Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly) a renewed faith that they could find her. Sure enough, they were able to do just that when Ant-Man and The Wasp finished.

In the finale of the sequel, Hank went into the Quantum Realm to rescue Janet, only to find that she has become more powerful than before. The movie is very vague in dealing with what Janet has actually been up to for all these years or the capacity of her powers. This veil of secrecy comes after she was largely absent from the marketing for Ant-Man 2 as a whole. Many wondered if she could secretly be the film's true villain, and even though that wasn't the case, it is still possible she could turn bad in the future.

CBR spoke to Ant-Man and The Wasp's director Peyton Reed and asked him about the popular theory that she could become a villain in the future. Reed couldn't get too specific about what they've discussed for fear of Marvel's snipers coming to get him, but he did tease that they spent a lot of time figuring out how to use Janet and what they should reveal right away. Ultimately, he teased they have discussed it.

We had so many discussions as we were first formulating the story. It was the big question in the movie: is Janet still alive down there after 30 years? Who is she now? How’s she been affected by the environment? It was the one thing that we really sort of had to formulate, what was going to happen to her, what it was going to lead to next, and how much of that we reveal in this movie.

I can say that it was certainly one of the things that we talked about. If I say or reveal anything more about Janet, there’s going to be a Marvel sniper that’s going to shoot me in the neck with a tranquilizer.

Janet van Dyne Wasp in the Dark Dimension

This is by no means confirmation that Janet will eventually become a foe for Ant-Man and Wasp, but the possibility is an exciting one. The Ant-Man franchise is built on family, so having the villain be so closely tied to the heroes could be how the franchise continues to go. Ant-Man's villain Darren Cross (Corey Stoll) was Hank's protégé, while Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) in Ant-Man 2 was the surrogate daughter of Bill Foster (Laurence Fishburne), Hank's former partner. Making Janet the villain feels like a natural evolution of the franchise. Of course, she, Hank, and Hope will all need to be brought back to life before any of this can happen.

If this path is taken for a hypothetical and not yet confirmed Ant-Man 3, making Janet the villain could also reopen up the Quantum Realm for further exploration. Marvel producer Stephen Broussard previously teased that the Quantum Realm would be a large part of another Ant-Man movie. Janet now has a quantum energy signature after her time in this realm, which effectively means she can store Quantum Energy. This energy has already been shown to have the ability to partially heal Ghost, but there's likely even more that she can do. Janet turning full heel would have to come with a reason, but maybe her mind simply isn't right after spending so much time in the Quantum Realm. There's plenty of potential for Janet's villainous turn and since the team has discussed it before, it could come into play if Ant-Man 3 happens as Reed hopes.