Ant-Man and the Wasp cut a huge Avengers cameo from the movie

An original idea for Ant-Man and the Wasp had a pretty big Avengers cameo planned. But that was cut to ensure the movie felt more like a standalone.

Marvel isn’t shy when it comes to sharing some of its characters across different movies. Falcon was in Ant-Man and Doctor Strange was in Thor: Ragnarok, just to name a few. But sometimes, it’s better not to steal the spotlight from the standalone stars.

This was the case for the great heroes in Ant-Man and the Wasp, who could really use a bit of alone time in the spotlight for once. Although, that wasn’t originally what was planned for the movie. We could have actually got an entirely new scene featuring a cameo from the first Avenger.

Director Peyton Reed explained in an interview with the Radio Times that he and his team wanted Captain America to appear during the hilarious flashback scene narrated by Luis. Scott Lang’s over-the-top friend would have recapped a moment from Captain America: Civil War that recounts the famous tarmac scene — but from his unique perspective.

“Early on, we had a version where we were going to do a quick version of the tarmac fight from Civil War, with some ridiculous thing where, you know, Captain America has Ant-Man as a baseball and throws him,” Reed said in the interview. “Because the whole thing is Luis’ version of events, right? We came up with all these ridiculous visuals.”

There were only two problems with that idea. First, Reed explained that they had already referenced Civil War in that movie too many times already. And second, the addition of Captain America wouldn’t have made Ant-Man and the Wasp feel like its own movie. Elaborating on the idea, Reed said:

"The idea was that this really wanted to be a little bit more standalone and in its own world.We knew that we wanted to continue the story of these characters and then introduce our own characters that were really far more relevant to the story we were telling.Plus the fact that we were coming right after Infinity War, which is really like everyone… With the exception of Ant-Man and the Wasp and, of course, Hawkeye."

Although having the Captain America cameo would have been nice, Reed made the right decision to just focus on the heroes for that movie. Ant-Man and the Wasp did have a bit of ill timing, though, seeing as most people were anxious to find out what happens after Infinity War. And Ant-Man and the Wasp certainly didn’t do much to answer that question. Nonetheless, Ant-Man and the Wasp still needed their sequel. And the story came together quite fine without relying too much much on other superheroes and other movies.

It’d be really awesome if that scene did exist, because it’d make one awesome bonus feature for the movie’s home release. Honestly, Marvel knows they’ve got tons of unused footage just waiting to be seen by fans, so why not let us see it all?