'Ant-Man' director reveals meaning behind the end-credits scenes

Warning: this article contains Ant-Man spoilers.

As is traditional with Marvel movies, the closing credits of Ant-Man contained an Easter egg—two of them, in fact. In the first scene, scientist Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) showed his daughter Hope (Evangeline Lilly) the prototype of a new Wasp suit while the final sequence, which seemingly took place some time after the conclusion of the film, featured Captain America (Chris Evans), the Falcon (Anthony Mackie), and an incapacitated Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan). That second scene also implied some sort of rift between Cap and Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark, which is a key plot point in the comics upon which the forthcoming Captain America: Civil War is based. So our pair of heroes are on their own? “Maybe not. I know a guy” says Mackie, presumably referring to Lang’s Ant-Man, for whom we know the Falcon was searching at the end of the film.

Below, Ant-Man director Peyton Reed talks about the two scenes and what they mean for the characters involved.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Did you direct both scenes?

PEYTON REED: No. I only directed the first one, which is the scene between Hank and Hope, where he finally shows her the Wasp suit. That was always a part of the movie. It really is the completion of Hope’s arc in the Ant-Man movie. It was important to me and the movie to have Hope’s arc be every bit as important as Scott Lang’s arc in the movie. It’s really her story as well. From the beginning, she’s got some real issues with ther father that need to be dealt with. It’s the completion of her dealing with that and becoming a hero. That was something that we shot in principal photograqphy that always was a core part of the Ant-Man movie. Wasp is such an important character in the whole mythology of Ant-Man, whether it’s the original Janet van Dyne or the Hope version of Wasp.

So, if someone is hopeful of seeing Evangeline Lilly in that suit at some point, will that hope be fulfilled, do you think?

I think we would be foolhardy to have shot a thing where Evangeline Lilly is looking at that amazing suit and never give the audience a chance to see her in that suit. [Laughs] That to me would be a bad kind of tease. That’s something that I feel has to be absolutely paid off.

What can you tell us about the second scene?

We always planned to have a second tag at the end of the credits roll. We actually cut some tags—most of them were comedic tags. I think we cut some things with Michael Peña’s Luis character and Rudd’s Scott Lang. They were mostly going to be these non sequitur comedic tags. But once we had our movie cut, and the whole subplot with the Falcon and Ant-Man crossing paths, the dailies from Captain America: Civil War started to come in, which is of course directed by the Russo brothers. And I was badgering Kevin (Feige, Marvel Studios president). I said “I want to see some of the dailies with Paul as Ant-Man. I was actually jealous that Ant-Man was even going to appear in another movie. [Laughs] So, I was dying to see it and I did see that footage and it’s incredible. And then, separate of that, when the dailies came in for the scene which is now the second tag, there was a moment that seemed to really complete the arc in our movie. We know, at the end of the movie, that Falcon is looking for Ant-Man, so now it really made sense to tease Civil War and to tease Ant-Man’s part in Civil War by having that scene with Captain America and Falcon.

We really wanted to do something that, at the end of that tag, we could throw up a title that said “Ant-Man will return.” In true Bond movie fashion, you know that he’s going to be back. Those were dailies from Civil War that we cut into a very succinct tag, just to kind of show the audience the progression. They know the Falcon is looking for Ant-Man for some reason at the end of our movie, we don’t know why. And then that second tag sort of gives a slight [bit of] more information about the situation that Captain America and Falcon find themselves in. It really is just meant to tease the fact that Ant-Man is in some way or another going to end up with these other characters. So, that’s how that came about.