‘MODOK is great!’: Ant-man 3 screenwriter says the reviews are ‘wrong’

Sequel is dangerously close to becoming the worst-rated MCU film ever

The director of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantamania has admitted that he was “surprised” by negative reviews of the new film.

The superhero movie, starring Paul Rudd, Jonathan Majors, and Evangeline Lily, was released in cinemas earlier this month.

It has received some terrible reviews, and has since become the lowest-scoring sequel in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).

Speaking to The Daily Beast, the screenwriter, Jeff Loveness, said he had not anticipated the movie’s poor reception.

“To be honest, those reviews took me by surprise,” said Loveness. “I was in a pretty low spot… Those were not good reviews, and I was like, ‘What the…?’”

He continued: “I’m really proud of what I wrote for Jonathan [Majors] and Michelle Pfeiffer.

“I thought that was good stuff, you know? And so I was just despondent, and I was really sad about it.”

Loveness recalled that he had watched a screening with an audience who laughed at the movie’s jokes.

Evangeline Lilly and Paul Rudd in Ant-Man and the Wasp (Marvel Studios)

“I’m like, ‘Goddamn! No, [the reviews] are wrong! I’m right! MODOK is great!” he said.

“I’m pretty happy with it overall, and I think I learned how to take a punch this week. And now that I learned that it’s not too bad, I can just get on with making things.”

Quantamania currently has an aggregated review score of just 51 per cent positive on Rotten Tomatoes.

It is not, however, the lowest-rated MCU film entirely – although it is close. Chloé Zhao’s 2021 ensemble feature Eternals currently holds that unfortunate title, with a 47 per cent rating.

It’s likely that Quantamnia could very well sink below Eternals in the next few weeks as more people watch the film.

It is the first movie of Marvel’s “Phase Five”, and saw the first cinematic introduction of Majors as Kang the Conqueror.

You can read The Independent’s three-star review of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantamania here.