The Ant-Man series has been a fan favorite since the first installment premiered in 2015, with major contributions from lead character Scott Lang and best friends – namely, Kurt, Leo, and Luis. Sadly, the latest installment, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, does not include these three friends. Now we know why.
During a recent sit-down with The Hollywood Reporter, director Peyton Reed revealed why none of the friends, especially Luis who is portrayed by Michael Peña, featured in the huge showdown between Scott Lang and his family on one hand and Kang the Conqueror on the other.
Tip Harris and David Dastmalchian did not reprise their roles as Leo and Kurt respectively either, leaving the friend group AWOL entirely. That said, Dastmalchian features in the film as a new character: a freedom Fighter named Veb.
Reed stated that Luis didn't return in the threequel because he didn't fit into any of the stories the film had to tell. In his words, "There were no versions of this movie [with Luis]. There are a lot of characters in the movie. We obviously have our Lang, van Dyne and Pym family, but then we also introduced Kang, MODOK and all of our Freedom Fighter characters. So, we had to make decisions early on about what stories we could tell and what stories we couldn't tell."
