'Avengers 4' Spoilers: Kevin Feige Explains Why the Quantum Realm Matters

It may have been all laughs in Peyton Reed’s Ant-Man and Ant-Man and The Wasp, but Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige says those two films are going to be really, really important — even beyond 2019’s Avengers 4.

In a new hardcover coffee table book, Marvel Studios: The First Ten Years, which will be available at retail on November 20 (you can pre-order the book on Amazon now), a Q&A interview with Kevin Feige reveals some interesting tidbits about the future of the MCU.

One question specifically asks Kevin Feige about the significance of the Quantum Realm, an extra dimension introduced in 2015’s Ant-Man. You can also, check out a video of Ant-Man and The Wasp director Peyton Reed breaking down the cosmic importance of his movie’s post-credits scene in the video provided exclusively to Inverse at the top of this post.

Here’s what Feige said about the Quantum Realm (emphasis ours):

“At the end of Ant-Man we followed Scott Lang into the Quantum Realm for the first time. We were beginning to peel back the onion that would later be completely peeled back in Doctor Strange as we go into the multiverse. So that was our little test into that. But now the Quantum Realm is a whole other territory that we can play with to tell our stories. This Quantum Realm is much larger than we ever imagined, and there are all sorts of adventures to be had at that level, which perhaps we will explore in another film.

Feige’s vague comments suggest that the Quantum Realm will be explored in the future, either in 2019’s Avengers 4 (of which there’s endless speculation regarding time travel, which isn’t hard quantum physics per se) or another movie yet to be revealed in the next “phase” of MCU films.

Ant-Man star Michael Douglas also mentioned the importance of the Quantum Realm to Ryan Seacrest, of all people.

“I mean, the Quantum Realm, that’s the key. That’s the key,” Douglas said. “The Quantum Realm plays an important part in all the next chapters, I think, of the Marvel films.”

Inverse previously interviewed Dr. Spiros Michalakis, a quantum physicist who acted as a science consultant on Ant-Man, who said that the Quantum Realm will play a major role in future Marvel films, including 2019’s Captain Marvel.

“This is exciting for the future,” Dr. Michalakis told Inverse. “There are different ways that some of these ideas appear on-screen in a few years. Not just for Ant-Man, but also for Captain Marvel and all of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.”

So, yeah. Quantum Realm: Big deal! While the two films starring Marvel’s smallest biggest hero have been humorous heist capers, it seems the impact of Ant-Man is going to be much bigger than anyone expected.

Avengers 4 will be released in theaters on May 3, 2019.