Marvel were STUNNED that audiences didn't like Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

Marvel were allegedly surprised when audiences didn't react fondly to Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.

In Quantumania, Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) and his family - Hope van Dyne, Janet van Dyne, Hank Pym and Cassie Lang - are transported to the quantum realm where they encounter Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors), who was due to be the next big bad of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

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The movie received a mixed reception from fans and a negative reception from critics. From the first week of its release to the second, it suffered a 69% drop in box office revenue which is the second-worst drop of any movie in the MCU.

Over the last few years, Marvel projects that were expected to be acclaimed - like Quantumania, Thor: Love and Thunder and Secret Wars - have all not received completely positive reviews, while Secret Wars in particular was panned.

For Ant-Man 3, Marvel believed they had another hit on their hands.

“Quantumania really shook them because they felt like they had something good. Because they all internally thought, 'Everyone's gonna love this,'” Joanna Robinson, author of the tell-all book MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios said on The Watch podcast.

"And then they put it out and people didn't. And then they were like, 'Oh no, our internal barometer is not attuned to what people want anymore.' With Quantumania, they were like, 'We put out a banger.' And then that's not how a lot of people felt."

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Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023)

After Scott Lang saves the world from Thanos with the Avengers, he decides to unravel his personal story in a book that will bring him unprecedented fame. However, the fame drives him further and further away from his daughter Cassie and the rest of his family. But then a freak accident happens and the family is swallowed up in another dimension.

Directed by: Peyton Reed
Stars: Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly and Jonathan Majors

Quantumania writer surprised by movie's poor reviews

Jeff Loveless, who wrote the movie, previously confessed that he was surprised by how harshly it was treated by critics.

Most of the criticism was pointed at the plot and writing which, of course, is Loveness' area.

“To be honest, those reviews took me by surprise,” he told The Daily Beast.

“I was in a pretty low spot… Those were not good reviews, and I was like, ‘What the …?'

“I’m really proud of what I wrote for Jonathan Majors and Michelle Pfeiffer. I thought that was good stuff, you know? And so I was just despondent, and I was really sad about it.”