CB-Musings Episode 115: The Last Ant-Man

In the final stretch of our MCU rewatch

Quite possibly the last Ant-Man movie....

Movie #31 = Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023)
New Episode every week.

Socials: @SavvyGeeksPodcast

CB = ComicBook related entertainment 
NU = Everything else

Episode Transcript

Microphone (2- USB Audio CODE (00:00):
I have a question for you guys.

(00:01):
Is there something in your lifethat you really enjoy?
And you find yourself at oddswith a lot of people who don't
see it the same way as you, thatcould be music that could be
food or could be in this case.
A movie.
Mark savvy savvy geeks here totalk to you about quantum mania.

(00:22):
Now, I don't think I'm the onlyperson that liked the movie.
I think a lot of people didenjoy it.
But what I'm talking aboutspecifically is MODOK.
So many people hated MODOK and Ido not agree.
I thought MODOK was so funny.
That's on king.
So many people are going to stoplistening right here because of

(00:43):
all the good things.
I'm going to say about MODOK tokick it off, but I thought
Murdoch was so funny and.
The one marijuana, one scenewhere he's like, Uh, or, um,
where she's like, oh, stop beinga D a D works.
I don't want to swear.
Stop being a D word.
And he's like, but I can.
Look at me.
I'm such a D word.
That was so funny and also.

(01:04):
I don't know what peopleexpected the CGI to look.
If you're not know what MODOKis.
That's what MODOK is.
Yeah, his face is all stupid andit's in this little tiny thing,
but yeah, Mona is a ridiculouscharacter.
Newsflash people were talkingabout a guy from Charles ants.
It's reasonable to expectsomeone ridiculous looking to be
in his movie.
And to S.

(01:24):
And also like, I really likedant man, the third ant man.
And I liked the other two aswell.
I don't know, I just don't getthe hate for this film.
I thought it was so funny andthe stakes were so high.
Like I thought the quantum realmwas so cool the way they
explained it and how we allexplored it.
I thought Kang, the conquer wasa bad-ass villain.

(01:45):
Jonathan majors absolutelycrushed it as Kang.
The conqueror.
I really wish they just recastedlike, dang son, just recast.
Um, it's too important of acharacter.
The way they kind of pivoted inthe MCU.
Uh, some people were saying isdue to the failure of this film.
Uh, all obviously a lot of it'sto the personal issues that
Jonathan majors faced.

(02:07):
But regardless, like pivotingfrom Kang was a stupid decision.
He was so good in this movie.
He was so good in Loki seasontwo.
Absolutely amazing villain.
I just wish we saw more of him.
He could have totally been thebig, bad.
Why are you going to do Dr.
Doom for, I liked Dr.
Doom, but I don't want it to bethe big, bad king was perfectly

(02:28):
set up to be that character.
To have that role.
I mean, What, uh, stood out forme the most in quantum mania was
the dynamic of the hope.
The van dine and the Langfamily, like that was a really
good diet and dynamic.
Uh, I didn't really like.
Uh, vaginally as haircut in thisfilm, to be honest.

(02:48):
Oh, whatever, just a haircut whocares as a character.
Hope van Dyne was amazing.
Cassie all grown up was so good.

Microphone (2- USB A (02:55):
Throughout the whole ant man, Chelsea 1, 2,
3.
I always thought Cassie, to be acharacter that brought out this
innate goodness and Scott, shewas the heart of.
Of the ant man franchise, reallyfrom when she was a little kid
to now a grown up.
Such a strong character and soimportant to, uh, the mortality
of Scott, you know, Isn't itpretty awesome how they had

(03:16):
Michael Douglas and MichellePfeiffer.
In their franchise, the ant madfranchise.
Yeah, I call it a franchise, buthonestly, I feel like we've seen
the end of the franchise, whichis pretty sad.
I'm sure Cassie will come backwhen they do a young Avengers.
But unfortunately, The S.
The movie did not do well.
It bombed.

(03:36):
That's the reality ant man.
Hitman quantum mania absolutelybombed.
And I think that means that thatwill be the last we see of Scott
Lang and his own movie.
I have the rotten tomato scores,which I don't typically do.
I don't usually mention thescores.
It's just not, I mean, whoreally cares honestly, but, uh,
it's important in the context ofthis because of this discussion.

(03:59):
I mean, uh, because ant man gota 46.
Percent.
Critic score, which is very rarefor a Marvel film.
They usually do well.
However, the audience score.
Did 82%.
So I think majority of peoplefelt the same as me, which was,
this is a really.
Good movie.
Fun movie.

(04:19):
I use the word fun a lot.
Cause fun.
Doesn't always mean quality.
Sometimes you can really enjoysomething, but as a movie
itself, it's not like it's Oscarworthy.
You know what I mean?
Um, but.
At the end of the day.
Studios do not.
Care about scores, rotten tomatoscores, I'm DB scores.
That just doesn't matter them.
What they care about is thenumbers.

(04:42):
The that green, how, how havethey.
Whole my God.
How has the movie done?
That was my reaction to thebudget.
As a whole.
I can't believe this has gottabe the highest.
Budget.
And any MCU movie.
So Ammon and the wasp quantummania had a$388 million budget.

(05:03):
Are you out of your mind?
That's the budget you put onthis film.
What is wrong with you?
These budgets have to come downbecause this is absolutely
ridiculous.
You're telling me that thismovie.
Was almost as expensive asAvengers end game.
The culmination of an entire.
Era of Marvel.

(05:24):
You guys have lost the pot.
That's ridiculous.
You've got to completely changethat.
I cannot believe how much thatbudget was.
It did decent at the box office.
I consider$476 million decent.
Okay.
This maybe shouldn't have beenlike 200.
Come on.
This is ridiculous.
I I'm, I'm like actually indisbelief at how much.

(05:44):
That movie costs.
Holy crap.
I think I can say crap.
I'm trying not to like flag thisas like, you know, swear words
when I did the video.
Hey, you know, It's too bad thatwe're not going to get any more
at man movies.
Th I think they, they sh theycould have totally recalibrated
and done better.
Next time.
These movies and moviesspecifically should be like

(06:06):
hundred.
50, maybe million dollarbudgets.
Like it should be way betterthan that.
That's ridiculous.
Well, I mean, it still is prettydecent.
Uh, it's not like one of thehigh end Marvin slums.
Like there, there were negativesto it, obviously like.
That whole scene where he'slike, uh, trying to get.
The rings, he's going the ringto like, get something for Kang.

(06:29):
And he kept seeing possibilitiesof himself as a little weird.
I didn't really.
I didn't really connect to thestory this time.
Like, even though I have a lotof positives to say it wasn't as
compelling of a story as thefirst two.
I mean, it still is.
I think better than the filmsthat I put ahead of it, which is
it comes in at number 26.

(06:49):
So let me just better than Thor,dark world black widow Ironman
three.
Captain Marvel 11 thunder.
I'm sorry, I just didn't loveIronman three that much.
Hmm.
You know what.
I'm going to do something I'venever done before.
I'm going to put.
I'm going to actually, causeit's not, it's not the rankings
aren't ironed out until theepisode airs.
I'm actually going to putquantum mania.

(07:10):
Behind iron man, three.
Yeah.
So that means.
It's actually going to come inat.
I got to do some changes here.
I've done it before.
I'm just thinking about it, youknow?
So that means a quantum mania isactually going to come out at.
Uh, 29th.
Yeah, that's where it's going.
It's ahead of, it's definitelyhad a captain Marvel and love
and thunder, but it's behindIronman three.

(07:31):
Cause I did still like thatmovie.
Wow.
We have.
Three movies left.
Guardians of the galaxy volumethree, the marvels, and then
we're going to end off on deadporphyrin.
I'm going to put these episodesout right away, because I want
to end the year off finishingthis MC rewatch.
I should've finished it off solong ago, but it's been such a
slog doing all these Marvelmovies.

(07:51):
I just.
Oh, I like them, but it's justso much.
I'm not going to do this again.
Or am I.
Thank you for listening toanother episode of savvy geeks.
I'm your host, mark savvy.
And I can't wait to talk to youabout guardians of the galaxy
volume three.
The next movie in our rewatch.