The Quantum Realm Is a Big Part of 'Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania' (SPOILERS)

At long last, the first film in Phase Five of the MCU is here in the form of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.

The third Ant-Man installment is much darker than its light-hearted predecessors, with the main characters — Scott (Paul Rudd), Hope (Evangeline Lilly), Hank (Michael Douglas), Janet (Michelle Pfeiffer), and Cassie (Kathryn Newton) — getting transported to the Quantum Realm and facing off against Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors).

Although most viewers are entranced by Jonathan Majors's phenomenal performance as Kang, others can't help but fall in love with the Quantum Realm and its out-of-this-world visuals. Now, there's plenty of curiosity and confusion from fans, so with that said, what exactly is the quantum realm?

Distractify attended the official Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania press conference, so stick around to learn what writer-director Peyton Reed and Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige revealed about the Quantum Realm.

In the movie, Janet Van Dyne reveals there's a secret universe beneath ours that evades time and space. That, our lovely friends and folks, just so happens to be the minuscule dimension known as Quantum Realm. In case you were curious, the only way to enter the so-called "Microverse" is through subatomic particles.

At the official press conference for Quantumania, moderator Randall Park (who stars as Agent Jimmy Woo in the MCU) asked Kevin Feige what the Quantum Realm really is and where we've seen it before. He replied, "it is a place that is on the subatomic level where space and time act differently." Kevin added that fans got their first taste of it in the first Ant-Man film, which is all thanks to Mr. Paul Rudd himself.

"I was sort of reminded recently that this was an idea that Paul had early on before we started filming the first Ant-Man film, to explore this, you know, quantum mechanics," Kevin said. "Things act very differently at the quantum level, and Paul was talking about the amount of storytelling and imagination and fun that you could have there."

Kevin further noted that the Quantum Realm allowed the Avengers "to time travel at Scott Lang's suggestion in Endgame, and it allowed us to have this entire manic quantumness [phonetic] in this film, where we go to a point where only Janet had ever seen before. ... there is an entire universe below the surface where we meet all sorts of fun, crazy characters."

In a follow-up, Randall noted that the Quantum Realm has a "very specific, really amazing, mind-blowing look and feel to it." He then asked writer-director Peyton Reed what, if anything, influenced the visuals. The filmmaker quickly responded, saying he and his team were inspired by "a number of things."

"We looked at everything from electron microscope photography to things like heavy metal magazines in the 70s and 80s, and we wanted to bring in all these elements like this. We wanted to bring in all these elements like this," Peyton added. "There's a little sword and sorcery element, and then there's a real, like, you know, Mobius element to it. We just wanted to assemble a team of artists and say we are creating the Quantum Realm."

Peyton continued, "You know, none of the other Marvel movies have really dealt with it, and want to create this very vivid world that has its own internal history and internal logic and, you know, who are the creatures there and who are the people there, and how do you travel? What are the laws of physics? All these things needed to be figured out."

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is now in theaters.