Marvel Fans Find This the ‘Most Unrealistic’ Part About the MCU
It may seem silly to level accusations of unrealism at the Marvel Cinematic Universe. After all, in more than a few of the studio’s 23 movies, the only “real” element we’re looking at in a shot might be the actors. And even some of them are probably stuntmen with the actors’ heads digitally grafted onto the stunt performers’ bodies.
In fairness, though, Marvel movies are usually pretty good at making us suspend disbelief. However, there is some disbelief that simply cannot be suspended, such as the idea that Scott Lang, AKA Ant-Man, can live in a swanky San Francisco house.
Where does Ant-Man get his money?
The house in question was Lang’s residence in the sequel Ant-Man and the Wasp. The actual location is in the Potrero Hill neighborhood in San Francisco. It is common knowledge that property values in California are prohibitively expensive. According to the real-estate site Zillow, this property, although it is not for sale, would go for an estimated $4.4 million.
It was not dissimilar to fans saying “Wait a minute” when in the 1978 Superman, they saw that Lois Lane lived in a spacious apartment with an open-air penthouse.
As the topic-starter on Reddit put it: “The most unrealistic part of the MCU is that Scott Lang, an ex con on house arrest with no job, can afford this house in San Francisco.”
This being Reddit, fans came up with all sorts of fun explanations as to how Scott could pay the rent or the mortgage on the place. For example: “Maybe Hank purchased it for him after the end of Ant-Man but before Civil War.”
Maybe. Or perhaps Lang got a little model house and made it life-size with Pym Particles. Because, science! However, a number of fans pointed out that there is actually a logical explanation for it, as far as Marvel logic goes.
Ant-Man was a thief before he was a hero
It helps to remember that before Lang could make himself very, very, small or very, very large, he not only turned to burglary in a misguided attempt to support his family, but he was also jailed for it. When he we meet him in the first movie, he was just getting out of prison but still palling around with his old partners in crime.
There was a scene that was deleted from the first Ant-Man movie that showed Lang using the Ant-Man suit for less than noble purposes, including a scene where he rolls over dice so his buddies can win at the craps tables in a casino.
However, director Peyton Reed said he cut the scene for two reasons. One, a similar gag has already appeared in one of the Tobey Maguire Spider-Man movies. Besides that, Reed told Yahoo Movies: “It just started to feel like it was dragging the movie. Also there’s no quick way of telling that story of him reverting back to his criminal past, so we ended up punting on it.”
When will we see Ant-Man again?
After playing a pretty important part in Avengers: Endgame, Ant-Man seems to have stalled. The MCU seems more focused on introducing us to new characters like The Eternals and Shang-Chi, rather than bringing old ones back for more. Yes, we’re getting more Black Panther and probably more Captain Marvel, but both of those were huge hits. Both Ant-Man movies were more modest hits, especially by Marvel standards.
There has been some speculation that Ant-Man 3 might go to Disney+ first, rather than theaters, and that would be a shame because the first movie, in particular, boasted some ingenious visual effects that would lose impact on a TV. There are also reports that the third movie will be ready in 2022, but that is not confirmed just yet. We know that Ant-Man is all about shrinking things, but the size of his screen shouldn’t be one of them.
