20 Great Movie Franchises That Became Unwatchable

The Marvel Cinematic Universe was already 11 movies and seven years deep when Ant-Man released, and it was unlike anything else within the shared universe. A Paul Rudd-led, true comedy heist film that introduced a new solo lead character for the first time since Captain America: The First Avenger.

No, Ant-Man is not likely to be too many people’s favourite MCU movie, but it was a fun outing that offered something new to proceedings. Ant-Man and the Wasp followed in the same footsteps, though outside of properly introducing Hope Van Dyne’s (Evangeline Lily) Wasp, it couldn’t quite reach the heights of its predecessor.

It is the threequel where the franchise really fell apart. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania shoved Hope back into a supporting role, giving her barely anything to do, seemingly forgot that it was supposed to be a comedy, and it relied far too heavily on CGI effects that simply weren’t up to par.

After a largely underwhelming Phase Four, Quantumania was chosen to kick off Phase Five thanks to its introduction of the then next big bad, Jonathan Majors' Kang the Conqueror. It even did a poor job of this, as showing the supposedly most dangerous Kang variant defeated by Ant-Man with no outside Avenger help didn’t exactly set the right tone.