Ant-Man The Wasp Evangeline lilly

When the casting announcements for ‘Captain America: Civil War‘ started to roll out, many people began to call the Russos’ Phase Three film ‘Avengers 2.5’ due to the amount of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes appearing in the movie. And though it’s hard to believe, there were originally even more soldiers lined up for battle. Although, as the scripting process progressed, screenwriters Christopher Markus and Marcus McFeely decided to cut down on a few characters for various reasons. One of the casualties happened to be Hope Van Dyne, who became the new Wasp at the end of ‘Ant-Man’. Now, the duo have explained why.

During a recent interview with Collider, Markus and McFeely discussed the evolution of their ‘Civil War’ script. In doing so, they also revealed their reasoning being keeping the Wasp out of the final script:

Markus: There was a period where we talked about bringing Wasp in. There was actually a draft Wasp was in because she was so almost on the edge of being in ‘Ant-Man’, but then you’re taking something awesome out of the Ant-Man team’s quiver if it’s like, ‘Well, we’re doing her!’ Plus she had a similar skill set, so it’s like ‘Well, maybe we just isolate it to Scott.’

McFeely: When you see the movie, you see that Scott is his own comic relief so it would change that a little bit. They would be this pair. Everybody else we would talk about them and then they’d go away, but we got most everybody back.

By the sounds of things, Ant-Man doesn’t have a huge role in the movie. (Pun fully intended even if I know full well that he’ll be making a giant impact.) Including Wasp in that moment wouldn’t give Evangeline Lilly’s big debut as her superhero alter ego the attention it deserves. Though I’d like to see more of Hope kicking some serious butt sooner rather than later, I’m glad that the writers opted to eliminate the glorified cameo and reserve that huge moment for ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp’.

Are you disappointed that the Wasp was left out of ‘Captain America: Civil War’? Are there any other heroes that you wish could have joined this fray? Let us know in the comments below.

‘Captain America: Civil War’ starring Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr., Chadwick Boseman, Scarlett Johansson, Sebastian Stan, Anthony Mackie, Elizabeth Olsen, Frank Grillo, Daniel Bruhl, Martin Freeman, Paul Bettany, Don Cheadle, Emily VanCamp, Paul Rudd, and William Hurt opens in theaters on May 6, 2016.

Despite being a “professional writer”, Ben likes run-on sentences and puns far too much. For more of his attempts at being funny and the occasional insightful thought, follow him on Twitter and Instagram.