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Avengers: Marvel's Secrecy Almost Ruined 'Ant-Man and the Wasp's Ending

That post-credits scene could have been very different.

Ant-Man and the Wasp may take place at around the same time as Avengers: Infinity War, but the two movies barely intersect until that post-credits scene.

With Ant-Man back in the Quantum Realm, Hope, Hank and Janet all get dusted by Thanos and the Infinity Gauntlet, but all the audience sees is their ash floating away on the breeze as Paul Rudd screams for help. It’s a powerful way to end the movie, but Marvel’s obsession with stopping spoilers almost ruined it.

In an interview with Screenrant, Ant-Man and the Wasp star Evangeline Lilly reveals that they actually filmed death scenes for all three characters, with the actors responding to the experience of turning to dust and disappearing from the world. In the end, that part didn’t make it into the final movie, and according to Lilly, it’s for the best.

“I’m so grateful that they did cut that out,” she said. “Because at that point I have not seen Avengers: Infinity War. So, I had really no idea what a dusting looked like, or felt like, or what’s supposed to be, and I don’t think [director Peyton Reed] really did either.”

So essentially, Marvel had the Ant-Man director include a dusting scene to connect the film to the larger MCU, but never told him what it should look like. That makes sense when you consider how far the company sometimes goes to keep major plot points a secret (we still don’t even know the official name of Avengers 4), but it seems like a big misstep when it comes to actual moviemaking.

Lilly concurs, adding that without clear direction she ended up responding to the Snap in a way that wouldn’t have made sense to anyone who’d already seen Infinity War.

“I think I made it look much more like an ascension to heaven than a torturous end,” she said.

Thankfully, director Peyton Reed made the right decision and cut that scene entirely, opting for a much more dramatic ending that doesn’t undermine the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe. Still, maybe moving forward Marvel could allow a little more transparency between its directors — though we also really hope that deleted scene of Hope Van Dyne getting gleefully dusted makes it into the Blu-ray bonus features.

Ant-Man and the Wasp is available on Blu-ray, DVD, and on-demand now.