The film was directed by Peyton Reed and written by the writing teams of Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers, and Paul Rudd, Andrew Barrer and Gabriel Ferrari.

It stars Rudd as Lang and Evangeline Lilly as Hope van Dyne, alongside Michael Peña, Walton Goggins, Hannah John-Kamen, David Dastmalchian, Tip "T.I."

Harris, Judy Greer, Bobby Cannavale, Randall Park, Abby Ryder Fortson, Michelle Pfeiffer, Laurence Fishburne, and Michael Douglas.

Ant-Man and the Wasp had its world premiere in Hollywood, Los Angeles, on June 25, 2018, and was released in the United States on July 6, 2018, as part of Phase Three of the MCU.

Two years after Scott Lang was placed under house arrest due to his involvement with the Avengers, in violation of the Sokovia Accords,[a] Hank Pym and his daughter Hope van Dyne briefly manage to open a tunnel to the Quantum Realm.

Opening a stable version of the tunnel, Pym, Hope, and Lang are able to contact Janet, who gives them a precise location to find her but warns that they only have two hours before the unstable nature of the Quantum Realm separates them for a century.

Using a truth serum, Burch learns the trio's location from Lang's business partners Luis, Dave, and Kurt, and informs a contact at the FBI.

Meanwhile, Lang and Hope are confronted by Burch and his men, and following a lengthy chase across San Francisco, Ava regains control of the lab, allowing her to begin taking Janet's energy by force.

[13] Tim Heidecker and Brian Huskey appear in cameos as a whale boat captain named Daniel Gooobler and a teacher at Cassie's school, respectively.

In June 2015, Ant-Man director Peyton Reed expressed interest in returning for a sequel or prequel to that film, saying that he had "really fallen in love with these characters" and felt "there's a lot of story to tell with Hank Pym".

[39] A month later, Pym actor Michael Douglas said he was not signed for any additional films, but "would look forward to more if it comes my way",[40] and expressed the desire to have his wife Catherine Zeta-Jones cast as Janet van Dyne for a potential follow-up.

Eric Eisenberg of CinemaBlend opined that a standalone adventure with Pym and the cut sequence would be a good candidate to revive the Marvel One-Shots short film series.

[8] Despite being offered the chance to direct sequels in the past, Reed had never done so out of a lack of interest, but was excited to work on Ant-Man and the Wasp because there was "a lot more story to tell with these characters that I have a genuine affection and kind of protective feeling about".

[56] Feige added that they wanted to "stay true to what made [Ant-Man] so unique and different", and teased the potential of seeing the Giant-Man version of Lang that had been introduced in Captain America: Civil War (2016).

However, the writers chose to remove the appearance in the final script since the events of Civil War were already referenced frequently in the film, and this instance "didn't feel organic to the story.

Reed reiterated his excitement for introducing the Wasp and "really designing her look, the way she moves, the power set, and figuring out, sort of, who Hope van Dyne is as a hero".

Michalakis described the subatomic realm as "a place of infinite possibility, an alternative universe where the laws of physics and forces of nature as we know them haven't crystallized" and suggested it should be represented in the film by "beautiful colors changing constantly to reflect transience.

[69] Reed knew Ant-Man and the Wasp would be "a fairly stand-alone movie but... could not ignore the events of Infinity War", with the biggest connection occurring in the film's mid-credit scene.

[81] An alternative idea that had been considered was to create a "fake behind-the-scenes documentary" that would have made the film look like it was a 1950s-era Godzilla movie with "people in suits stomping on model cityscapes".

[82] DNEG worked on over 500 shots, including the effects for Ghost—which were shared with the other vendors—the third act chase sequence, and the final Ghost fight as Hank and Janet are returning from the quantum realm.

Though some of the film was shot with a Frazier lens that provides extra depth of field, DNEG would still need to "re-project the road higher and "raise the floor level" to simulate a tiny sized camera".

Method Studios VFX Supervisor Andrew Hellen, explained, "We did a lot of research into macro and cellular level photography, and played with different ways to visualize quantum mechanics.

[91] Tracy Brown, writing for the Los Angeles Times, praised how the trailer prominently featured Lilly's Van Dyne showing "she was always meant to be a superhero".

[2] Ant-Man and the Wasp had its world premiere at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles, on June 25, 2018,[96] and was released in the United States on July 6, 2018,[46] where it opened in 4,206 theaters, of which 3,000 were in 3D, 403 were in IMAX, over 660 were in premium large format, and over 220 were in D-Box and 4DX.

The digital release also features a look at the role concept art plays in bringing the various MCU films to life and a faux commercial for Online Close-Up Magic University.

The website's critical consensus reads, "A lighter, brighter superhero movie powered by the effortless charisma of Paul Rudd and Evangeline Lilly, Ant-Man and The Wasp offers a much-needed MCU palate cleanser.

[2] Peter Travers, writing for Rolling Stone, gave the film 3 out of 4 stars and praised Rudd and Lilly, saying, "The secret of Ant-Man and the Wasp is that it works best when it doesn't try so hard, when it lets charm trump excess and proves that less can be more even in the Marvel universe.

"[119] Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times praised the lightweight tone as a treat and a breath following the "dramatically heavy conclusion" of Avengers: Infinity War.

[123] Simon Abrams of RogerEbert.com said the film was "good enough", a "messy, but satisfying" sequel that he felt managed to juggle its many subplots while giving Rudd's Lang some decent character development.

[126] Writing for The Boston Globe, Ty Burr called the film the perfect "summer air-conditioning movie", finding it fun, funny, superficial and an improvement over the first.