What You Need To Watch Before Seeing 'Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania'!

Ready to explore Quantumania? Soon we’ll be able to see the fascinating world of the quantum realm and the mysterious life within it, as the third installment of MCU movies about Ant-Man and his friends is coming out on February 17!

The second part of the “insect franchise” came out 5 years ago, so if you’re not a die-hard fan who’s rewatching all the movies of old Marvel phases every year, you’ll definitely need to refresh your memory of all the previous films. You probably know that movies and TV shows in the MCU are often intertwined with one another, so we’re going to give you the complete list of films and TV shows that you should watch before heading to the theater for Quantumania in order to understand what’s going on. Let’s start (all of these titles can be streamed on Disney+)!

1. Ant-Man (2015)

Well, the first Ant-Man movie is obvious if you need a reminder of how Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) got his super-costume in the first place. Lang has just come out of prison and is trying to get his life back together. After a failed burglary attempt, he gets acquainted with Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) and his daughter Hope (Evangeline Lilly), who introduce both Scott and us to all the discoveries and super-abilities of the insect world.

2. Captain America: Civil War (2016)

When Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) and Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) have a massive falling out over the signing of the Sokovia Accords, the Avengers fracture into two different teams in order to fight each other. Scott Lang teams up with Captain America, as he’s a big fan of the superhero, and fights alongside him in the big airport battle. At the end of the movie, he and the rest of Rogers’s team are captured and briefly imprisoned in the Raft before being freed by Steve himself. 

3. Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018)

After the events of Civil War, Scott makes a deal with the government to be placed under house arrest instead of being returned to the Raft. Meanwhile, Hank and Hope manage to open a tunnel to the Quantum Realm, because they both believe that Hank’s wife, Janet Van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer), is still trapped somewhere in there. Along with Scott, they manage to enter the quantum world and save Janet. In the post credits scene, the science gang are conducting experiments with the new world they’ve discovered, but as Scott enters the realm, Hank, Hope, and Janet turn into dust from Thanos’s snap. 

4. Avengers: Infinity War (2018)

Even though none of the Ant-Man characters are actually involved in the events of Infinity War (due to the events of Ant-Man and the Wasp taking place at the same time), it's still worth a rewatch in order to remember how the biggest and most prominent war in the MCU (so far) started -- Thanos’s collecting of all the Infinity Stones so that he can get rid of half of all living things in the universe. The Avengers fight him in many different battles, but eventually they lose and Thanos manages to perform the Snap.

5. Avengers: Endgame (2019)

After a 5-year time jump, we see the Avengers (or what’s left of them) depressed and lost. They couldn’t save the planet, and that has been a big burden for them. Meanwhile, Scott has been trapped in the Quantum Realm -- until a rat (the true hero of the story) activates the tunnel and Lang comes back. For him, 5 years felt only like 5 hours, so he comes up with the idea for the "time heist" to find the Infinity Stones before Thanos does and prevent the Snap. At the end of the movie, he gets reunited with his daughter and friends and takes part in the big victorious battle at the end. 

6. "Loki” (2021)

This one may seem a little strange, as Loki’s story presumably has nothing to do with Ant-Man. At least, that’s what we thought, before finding out that the main antagonist of Quantumania is a variant of Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors), who appeared in the TV series as well. In “Loki”, Kang is referred to as He Who Remains, and he was the one who created the Time Variance Authority. So, if you want to find out more about the origin of the new villain, you should definitely re-watch this TV show!