Avengers: Endgame juggles an overwhelming array of heroes, but in a recent interview with a Chinese site, co-director Joe Russo singled out one key player who doesn’t get enough credit. Be warned that spoilers lie ahead.
The unsung hero is the rodent who wanders over the controls of the Quantum Tunnel, freeing Ant-Man from the Quantum Realm after five years. If it weren’t for this moment, Scott Lang wouldn’t have been able to tell Earth’s Mightiest Heroes about the possibilities of time travel, setting the gang’s snap reversal plan in motion.
When Russo was asked about this scene, the filmmaker admitted that a lot credit goes to that furry little critter:
“Yes, the mouse saved the universe. Among the many realities in those 14 million possible futures Doctor Strange foresee, the mouse failed to press button and thus the heroes failed in those futures.”
After the cliffhanger ending of Ant-Man and the Wasp, the internet was abuzz with theories on how Scott would make it out of the Quantum Realm. Some suggested that Ant-Man would be rescued by one of his surviving allies, like Luis or Ghost. Others suspected that he would escape using one of those time vortexes mentioned by Janet van Dyne. As far as we can tell, no one predicted that the fate of the universe would depend on the actions of one lowly mouse.
In any case, since Ant-Man made it out of Avengers: Endgame in one piece, it feels safe to assume that Paul Rudd’s character still has a future in the MCU. Earlier this year, Michael Douglas even mentioned that there’s been some talk of an Ant-Man 3. What’s more, now that Cassie Lang has aged five years, perhaps there’s the potential for Scott’s daughter to become a heroine in her own right. Young Avengers, anyone?