The Marvel Cinematic Universe is full of tantalising what-ifs, from the other actors originally in the frame to play the iconic superheroes (Emily Blunt would have made a great Black Widow, to be fair) all the way to the great ideas that never made it past the storyboarding stage (we’re looking at you, Captain America throwing Ant-Man like a baseball).


But sometimes, ideas are dropped for good reasons – and according to Ant-Man and the Wasp star Evangeline Lilly, one plan Marvel had for her character Hope van Dyne was much better left on the cutting room floor.

“I was actually gutted when they told me I was going to be in Captain America: Civil War,” Lilly told RadioTimes.com of early plans to include the Wasp in the 2016 team-up movie, where she would have appeared alongside Paul Rudd’s Ant-Man/Scott Lang for the film’s iconic airport battle scene.

Despite the kudos of appearing in such a big movie, Lilly explained that she felt it would rush Hope’s development into a full-fledged superhero, while also relegating the Wasp’s big debut to a small part in a very busy movie.

“What that meant to me was, once again a female heroine, a female superhero is not going to get an origins film,” she explained.

“She’s going to be introduced in a man’s movie, and play a small part, and be relegated to the sidelines. And I didn’t want that.”

Of course, Lilly was prepared to go along with it anyway – but when the call came back that the film was now going in a different direction, she couldn’t help but feel relief.

“I was very happy to do it, if that’s what they asked me to do,” she said.

“I would do anything just to be in this world. Whatever the role is. But then when they said, ‘Oh we’ve changed our minds,’ I was very excited for what was coming next.

“Because I was like, ‘Wait…because I’m gonna get a film?’ And then they said, ‘We would rather make a meal out of revealing the Wasp in the next Ant-Man film.’ And so I got my wish.”

Now, the Wasp has ended up co-headlining the movie she debuted in as a superhero, which also marks the first time a female heroine has appeared as a title character in a Marvel movie. Definitely worth avoiding a long afternoon in a German airport.


Ant-Man and the Wasp is released in UK cinemas on 2nd August