A mega-villain like Kang is not something a minor character like Ant-Man is used to dealing with — at least, not alone. “Quantumania” screenwriter Jeff Loveness said as much in a recent interview with SFX Magazine. Compared to Sonny Burch (Walton Goggins) from “Ant-Man and the Wasp,” Kang the Conqueror will be bringing some higher-stakes storytelling.
“[Paul] Rudd does some pretty incredible acting. There’s a shift that happens. Once Kang shows up, once Scott realises just who he’s dealing with, the movie starts to pivot. You see it in Rudd’s eyes. Scott’s a goofy, playful guy, but he’s been in jail twice, he’s fought in these big Avengers things, and you can see his eyes slowly change — ‘Oh, I’m not dealing with Walton Goggins from the last movie, this is something else!'”
Sonny Burch, as MCU fans might recall, was a mere human criminal, sans superpowers, who sought to steal superhero technology for sale on the black market. He has no time travel plots or world-conquering plans. He merely wanted to have a lot of money and perhaps to gain respect in the criminal underground. However, Sonny was played by Walton Goggins, the formidable star of “Justified,” “The Shield,” and “The Righteous Gemstones,” whose superpowers include his magnetic charisma and boundless versatility as an actor. Thanos might have collected all six Infinity Stones, but even the Mad Titan himself didn’t possess a Critics’ Choice Television Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series.
If Kang is, indeed, such a force to be reckoned with that he is completely off the Goggins Scale, this could prove to be Ant-Man’s greatest battle yet.