Ant-Man director says the Quantum Realm is a foodie’s paradise; hints at ‘civilization down there’

When Janet Van Dyne finally escaped the Quantum Realm, she may have been leaving behind a pretty cool-sounding place — the kind where a civilization is thriving and the food is delicious, according to Ant-Man and the Wasp director Peyton Reed.

Reed recently told a Collider-hosted fan Q&A crowd that the Quantum Realm isn’t just an infinite void of tiny, sub-molecular nothingness. Rather, he suggested, it’s a populated place; one with its own culture; its own technology; and — what really matters — its own killer food scene.

Reinforcing the idea that one of the MCU’s least-explored locales may in fact contain an entire universe’s worth of interesting places and people (or creatures), Reed said keen-eyed viewers might even have noticed that the Quantum Realm appears to look, from a distance, like an inhabited world. 

“There is definitely a shot as Hank and Janet are blasting out of the Quantum Realm where it appears there might be some sort of civilization down there,” Reed said, joking that “[t]here’s some great food down there, guys. The food scene in the Quantum Realm is not to be believed.” 

If foodie culture in the Quantum Realm is that highly evolved, Reed hinted that fans can also assume that other aspects of the MCU’s littlest habitat are as well. After all, how has Janet been doing basic human stuff — like breathing — at such a small scale for all those lost decades?

“Janet Van Dyne is clearly not wearing her Wasp suit down there,” said Reed, referencing the changes Michelle Pfeiffer’s character look undergoes. “There are little vestiges and pieces of it she’s taken from her suit thirty years later, but she has this spear things and these other items that feel like it’s from some sort of culture. There’s something going down. It’s not just some wasteland.

“…For the breathing, Janet makes the point that her time down there has not just been adaptation. It’s also been evolution, and maybe she’s evolved as a being.”

As fans toss around Quantum Realm-related theories while waiting for Avengers: Endgame to tie up all the loose ends of the MCU’s third phase, Janet and Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) may turn out to be humanity’s earliest explorers of Marvel’s mini-verse, poised at the cutting edge of everything we know so far about a place we may one day get to see — and taste — a lot more of. 

If that’s the case, we’ll be sure to bring our appetite…and hope they have all-you-can-eat tacos.