After 9 Years in the MCU, One Actor Just Teased Their Character's Ending

Summary

• The legendary actor has been starring in the MCU films since 2015, giving a great performance as a father, mentor, and brilliant scientist.
• However, he recently announced his desire to leave the project for good.
• It's still unknown how Marvel will handle the character, but both his death and his life could mean a lot for Phases 5 and 6.

An era that began in 2008 with the release of the first Iron Man is coming to a close. Then we had character introductions, the 2012 Avengers, endless comic book arcs on Earth-616, ending with the confrontation with Thanos and the beginning of the Multiverse.

Some prefer to use the umbrella term 'The Infinity Saga' as applied to the period from 2008 to 2019, but we would like to discuss a broader time period that is essentially unfinished. After all, some characters and their portrayers who were introduced long before Endgame are still involved in the MCU.

Under such circumstances, one of the longest-lived sub-franchises is Ant Man, which is technically still going on, and Paul Rudd 's character is likely to return more than once. But what about the original Ant Man, Dr. Hank Pym, played by the excellent Michael Douglas, who has been in the MCU since 2015?

Well, it looks like the living Hollywood legend would like to see his character killed off sooner rather than later in the upcoming movies.

Actor Wants to Bid Farewell to His Character

It turns out that Michael Douglas has long wanted his Hank Pym to be written out of the script, and that the character would be honored by being killed off in the most spectacular way possible. And of course he pitched this for Quantumania.

'This actually was my request for the third one. I said I'd like to have a serious [death], with all these great special effects,' Douglas told The View. 'There's got to be some fantastic way where I can shrink to an ant size and explode, whatever it is. I want to use all those effects. But, that was on the last one. Now, I don't think I'm going to show up.'

In particular, Douglas felt that his character would likely not be involved in any subsequent films. That's possible, given that the next Avengers movies aren't scheduled until 2026 and 2027, but it's hard to imagine that not only an iconic character, but one so influential in the development of the cinematic universe, would be quietly written out of the script.

What Could Hank Pym's Potential Death Mean for the MCU?

Of course, it's entirely possible that Disney wants to keep such a big-name actor under their wing for a while longer. However, Douglas is now 79 years old, and it's likely that he's no longer enthusiastic about a movie that focuses primarily on CGI, so the end of Pym's story may indeed be within the next few Marvel movies. But what does that mean for the cinematic universe itself?

First, Hank's death would certainly affect his daughter, Hope Van Dyne aka Wasp (Evangeline Lilly), as well as Scott Lang, for whom Pym has become a de facto mentor and even father figure. Second, while the superhero's role outside of the Ant-Man franchise isn't as prominent at first glance, unlike other inventors like Tony Stark or even Nathaniel Richards, it was his technology that essentially allowed other superheroes to defeat Thanos, bring back trillions of lives, and counter the madness of the multiverse.

Well, we'll just have to wait for the subsequent Phase 5 and 6 movies, because until further confirmation and announcements, the chances of Douglas returning to the MCU are literally 50/50. However, there are rumors that Avengers: Secret Wars, scheduled for 2027, will be a soft reboot, so Hank could still come back to the big screen.

Source: The View.