Marvel Studios’ “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” opened in cinemas two weeks ago and has made headlines more for its weaknesses than its successes.
The film is on par with “Eternals” as the worst-reviewed MCU film to date by critics – earning just a 48/100 on both Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic after hitting a low of 47 the other day.
Its ‘B’ CinemaScore from audiences is certainly the lowest for any Marvel Studios film to date, the fandom rejecting it enough that the film had the worst second-weekend drop (69%) for an MCU film opening over $100 million.
One of the only parts of the film that has scored consistently good reviews is Jonathan Majors’ performance as the film’s antagonists Kang the Conqueror. Majors appeared on IndieWire’s Screen Talk podcast this week and was asked about the bad critical reviews for the film:
“It doesn’t change how I see myself, period. It’s all data. I’m a performance within a story. One thing I will say to my team as we’re leaving a premiere if they’re reading reviews, I’ll say, ‘How’s the movie doing?’ I try to clean my plate and take care of my part. The response is: ‘You’re straight. You’re good. They like you.’ And they tell me about the movie. Sometimes the movie is also on that level, and sometimes [it’s not].
It’s just people. They have an opinion. You always have an opinion. I’m no fool. I know these are people writing it. These aren’t my Yale professors or my drama teachers. These are people who have kids and they have a perspective, they have a religious upbringing or a lack thereof. They live in this town, or they want to be seen in this way or don’t want to be seen in this way.
I look at the aggregate and, ok, 47. But what does that 47 mean when you also got this amount of box office? What do these things mean? It’s information. I am in the know. I won’t play myself. If you are a critic on a level, I probably know you and understand your politics.”
The comments come as the film’s screenwriter Jeff Loveness, who has been out there talking up the Marvel Studios film where he can, spoke to The Daily Beast and says the bad reviews caught him by surprise:
“I was in a pretty low spot… Those were not good reviews, and I was like, ‘What the …?’ I’m really proud of what I wrote for Jonathan [Majors] and Michelle Pfeiffer [scientist Janet Pym]. I thought that was good stuff, you know? And so I was just despondent, and I was really sad about it.”
A rather disappointed Loveness decided to attend a public screening of the film which completely changed his mood:
“I’m like, ‘Goddamn! No, [the reviews] are wrong! I’m right! MODOK is great!’ 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.”
Loveness will return as he’s set to pen “Avengers: The Kang Dynasty” whilst Majors is returning for both that and the more immediate second season of “Loki”.
