'Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania' director explains why Michael Peña isn't in the film
- Michael Peña doesn't reprise his role as Luis in "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania."
- Luis is one of the fan-favorite supporting characters from the previous two films.
"Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania" takes audiences down into the Quantum Realm to meet the Marvel Cinematic Universe's new big bad: Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors). Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) and the Ant-family are drawn into a full-blown revolution against the intimidating warlord, but there are a few characters missing from previous films.
While the bite-sized hero is joined by his partner Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly), his daughter Cassie Lang (Kathryn Newton), Janet van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer), and Hank Pym (Michael Douglas), his best friend Luis (Michael Peña) is nowhere to be seen.
The criminal-turned-security-consultant was a staple in the first two movies, charming audiences with his motormouth and endearing personality.
But director Peyton Reed recently told The Hollywood Reporter that the scale of "Quantumania" meant there was no room for Luis or Scott's other associates, Kurt (David Dastmalchian) and Dave (T.I.)
Reed explained: "There were no versions of this movie [with Luis]. There are a lot of characters in the movie. We obviously have our Lang, van Dyne and Pym family, but then we also introduced Kang, M.O.D.O.K., and all of our Freedom Fighter characters."
The director added: "So we had to make decisions early on about what stories we could tell and what stories we couldn't tell. I love those characters."
Reed went on to say that although Peña's character and the other former criminals are a "really fun" part of the "Ant-Man" films, there was no point involving them because "Quantumania" mainly takes place in the Quantum Realm.
He said: "They were really, really fun and part of the Lang family, but as we got further and further into [development] and knew we wanted to bring the family into the Quantum Realm pretty early in the movie, it just didn't make sense [to include Luis and co.]."
"Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania" is in theaters Friday.