Jeff Loveness was responsible for writing the movie that kickstarted Marvel’s Phase 5 and properly introduced the new “big bad” – Jonathan Majors’ Kang the Conqueror. He will also be writing Avengers 5, with the subtitle of The Kang Dynasty, so he’s one of the chief architects of Phase 6 too. Despite this, Loveness claims to know nothing about the phases, and just wants to focus on telling good stories in each movie.
Regarding Ant-Man 3, he told Gizmodo; “I just saw it as one movie. I’m not part of the inner cabal [of Marvel] that meets underneath the Vatican or something [laughs]. I’m not part of that Volturi vampire enclave or something.”
“I just tried to look at it as ‘Hey, you got an opportunity to write a really fun adventure comedy movie with a compelling villain played by literally the best actor in the world right now.’ I think as soon as you start looking down the road, you get in trouble. So I tried to lay down a few train tracks, but the job for me was to make Kang the Conqueror compelling and make this movie fun and keep it moving.” He added; “I don’t know what phase we’re on.”
“I have heard the term ‘Phase Five’ more in the last two months than [the entire time making the movie.] [Laughs] No, I think that’s more of almost a thing for the internet than anything. Like, obviously there are 30 Marvel movies. You want them to connect. You want to propel them into the next phase, which this is the beginning of. We’ve got a plan and it’s going to be very exciting with Avengers.”
“But in the back of my head, I’m a kid from a small town of like 200 people. We didn’t even have a movie theatre in my town. So in the back of my head I thought ‘My cousin’s going to go watch this. Who knows if he’s seen Loki? Let’s just make a fun movie.’ Even if you just know who Paul Rudd is, you kind of get what’s going on. Context clues will help you out with the rest.”
Loveness also told SlashFilm; “You know, I just tried to focus on writing this movie, and then you can kind of fish-food a couple of things to go forward. I could care less about what phase we’re in. It’s more about just making this fun family adventure comedy movie with a great villain. I think, at the end of the day, that’s what people want to watch, and if you do your job right, it gets people excited going forward.”
Check out our guide to the best Marvel villains.