Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania premiered last weekend, kicking off Phase 5 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. With the successful release of the third Ant-Man movie, director Peyton Reed is already looking forward to his next project for Marvel Studios.
Reed recently spoke with Collider about Quantumania and revealed what projects he is interested in working on. The director shared that he would pass on leading the X-Men project in the MCU and prefers a character tied to the Guardians of the Galaxy.
“I’m not an X-Men guy. [Quantumania writer] Jeff Loveness, he’s an X-Men guy,” Reed said, namedropping his colleague. I love the X-Men, I love watching X-Men movies. I don’t want to make an X-Men movie.”
While this is not a direct confirmation that the X-Men will be making their MCU debut soon, it gives fans hope that Marvel is already laying the groundwork for the project. The director prefers working on lesser-known characters such as Ant-Man.
“That’s what’s great about Marvel because there’s this infinite… The ones that are interesting to me now are kind of the lesser,” Reed explains. “I mean, Ant-Man at the time – we knew Ant-Man, he was a founding member of the Avengers, but in terms of the public consciousness, he was probably a B-level, maybe a C-level character. Who knows, it depends on your point of view. I love that about him.”
The director is specifically interested in making a movie for the Human Rocket, also known as Richard Rider. He is also known by the alias Nova while he was still an earth-bound superhero. The Nova Corps have already appeared in the MCU, but not Nova himself.
“To me, he was almost like a subculture Marvel hero. It’s what drew me to Bring It On like, ‘A movie about cheerleaders? That’s weird,’ And drew me to Down With Love,” Reed shared. “‘It’s like a sort of Rock Hudson, Doris Day homage as a romantic comedy set in the ’60s?’ I’m into that. I had the same attraction to Ant-Man, it was the same kind of thing. So, I like the idea. I would do a Nova movie. I love [The Man Called Nova]. That seems cool.”
Who is Nova?
Fans of Guardians of the Galaxy may know the Nova Corps which appeared in the first two movies. In Marvel lore, the last member of the space police, Rhomann Dey, traveled to Earth and selected high school student Richard Rider as his replacement.
Rider took the uniform and powers of a Nova Centurion and called himself Nova, becoming a superhero and fighting supervillains on Earth. He discovered the Nova Corps spaceship orbiting the planet and used it to travel back to Xandar and joined the war against the Skrulls.
Nova has superhuman strength, speed, and durability. He can also fly and absorb energy blasts directed at him. Nova is also a good hand-to-hand combatant and his suit allows him to survive in space.
Marvel already announced last year that it is working on a Nova project for Disney+. However, Marvel did not officially announce a release window for the TV special yet.
