Director Peyton Reed has quashed reports that Ant-Man and the Wasp will be Marvel's first romantic comedy.
In December, the Ant-Man sequel was billed as a romantic comedy at an event in Russia, where the film was presented as "MAN-ANTS AND OCS" and described as "the first romkomom from Marvel." In an interview with Empire, Reed denied those reports. "It's not a romantic comedy," the director said. "The idea might enter Hope's brain: does she need Scott Lang in her life?"
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Reed's comments suggest there may be some elements of romance between Scott Lang and Hope van Dyne in the film, but that they certainly won't be the main focus. Reed also emphasized the importance of Wasp being more than just a sidekick in the film and how the title of the sequel is meant to reflect that. "It was important to me, in this movie called Ant-Man and the Wasp, that she's not a supporting character," Reed said. "She's a lead character. She's become a fully-formed hero."
Marvel has utilized different genre templates to great success in recent years, with Captain America: The Winter Soldier being labeled a political-thriller and Spider-Man: Homecoming drawing inspiration from teen coming-of-age comedies. In 2015, Reed mentioned that Ant-Man and the Wasp will draw from "an entirely different genre template," though we can now safely cross romcom off the list of potential templates.
Directed by Peyton Reed, Ant-Man and the Wasp opens in theaters July 6 and stars Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Bobby Cannavale, Michael Peña, Tip “T.I.” Harris, Judy Greer, David Dastmalchian, Michael Douglas, Michelle Pfeiffer, Laurence Fishburne, Hannah John-Kamen, Randall Park and Walton Goggins.