In Ant man, Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) described the quantum realm as “a reality where all concepts of time and space become irrelevant as you shrink forever.” Jeff Loveness, Marvel Studios’ writer Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, compares the subatomic dimension to “the basement of the multiverse” – one that happens to be the domain of imprisoned time lord Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors). Unlike Janet van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer), who was lost for 30 years in the quantum void where time and space work differently, Kang has been unable to escape what Loveness calls an “unexplored place” in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

“We really wanted to build it from the ground up and we thought, how can we make this other than just outer space, how can we make this other than underwater, like Namor’s Talokan kingdom. [in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever]Loveness said Marvel. com. “We came up with [the idea] that it’s actually like the basement of the Multiverse. It’s this connected limbo outside of space and time.”

As seen in Ant man, Ant-Man and the WaspAnd Avengers: endgame, the Quantum Realm is “as big an idea as any of the things in any of the other worlds we’ve explored in the MCU so far,” said producer Stephen Broussard. “It’s a world of its own, similar to Asgard or Wakanda or the world of the mystical arts in Doctor Strange. To get the chance to do something so big, and so big in part three of a movie, was really nice.”

For the first time, a Marvel movie will spend most of its runtime in the Quantum Realm when the Ant-Fam — Scott Lang (Paul Rudd), his daughter Cassie (Kathryn Newton), Scott’s superhero partner Hope (Evangeline Lilly), and her parents Janet and Hank – get trapped in this realm ruled by Kang. Film makers built Quantumanianew universe from the ground up, creating a strange world inhabited by characters and creatures like Veb (David Dastmalchian), the telepath Quaz (William Jackson Harper), the freedom fighter Jentorra (Katy O’Brian) and the eccentric Krylar (Bill Murray). ).

“When [director] Peyton Reed came to me and we started talking about the Quantum Realm as this huge epic, world within worlds, he wanted it to feel like it was huge,” production designer Will Htay explained. “What we didn’t want it to be, was macro photography, we didn’t want it to be too CG heavy. Even though we knew we would ultimately rely on VFX and CGI, but what we wanted to do is try to make it as real and tangible as possible in certain places. So that when we go there with our protagonist, we can feel it and touch it and smell it and we want it to feel like it’s this real place hidden beneath the Multiverse.”

As described by Lilly, the Quantum Realm is a world of “cruel suns that can eat you, blobs that can morph, broccolis that can fight in battles, buildings that are part of a freedom fighter brigade.”

“You look over the landscape and [don’t] see everything you would expect on planet Earth,” Lilly continued. “Things like gravity work differently, so you have water trickling up instead of down, and you have clouds that don’t move in a way that resembles our reality . It’s going to be as silly and fun as it is compelling and epic and beautiful. It’s going to be very elegant and very graceful.”

With Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Michael Douglas, Michelle Pfeiffer, Kathryn Newton, William Jackson Harper, Katy O’Brian, David Dastmalchian, Bill Murray and Jonathan Majors, Marvel Studios’ Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania opens in theaters February 17 only.