Last summer’s Ant-Man was another successful entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, thanks in part to the comic edge added to the script by Adam McKay. The writer is in talks to contribute once again to the announced sequel, Ant-Man and the Wasp, set to hit theaters on July 6, 2018.

In the first film, Evangeline Lilly’s character Hope van Dyne trained Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) to fight and fully utilize all of the power of the size-changing Ant-Man suit, but she never got to don that hero costume herself. A scene in the credits showed her father, Dr. Hank Pym (Michael Douglas), revealing a prototype of the Wasp suit he and his wife Janet (Hayley Lovitt), the original Wasp, never finished. Hank has realized that they were really making it for Hope all along.

We’ll finally get to see Hope suit up in the sequel, but there’s possibly more good news on the horizon for the Marvel heroine. While discussing his love of the Ant-Man project, writer McKay fielded a question about a possible solo film for Wasp in the future. As he explained to IGN, a lot will depend on that Ant-Man sequel.

Director Peyton Reed has promised fans a “weirder” sequel, with possibly more focus on that wild and psychedelic micro-molecular Quantum Realm. He added that Scott and Hope will have an equal partnership in this hero business, and part of the filmmaker’s job for the follow-up is to figure out the duo’s “fighting style.” Seeing Wasp in more of the action sequences should go a long way in selling her as a character worthy of her own film.

“Possibly. I think it all depends on this sequel and how the character plays. Certainly there’s a lot of female superheroes in the Marvel universe so I’m sure you’re going to see them start to spread out. They sort of started with their kind of bedrock characters from the 60s and the 70s and I think you saw more of an explosion of female characters happening in the 80s and then the 90s. X-Men obviously has great female characters, but that’d be interesting, a Wasp movie. I don’t know, that’d be very interesting. I always think of the two of them as kind of together – they always were in the comics – but why not. Sure.”

Ant-Man himself is also booked to make an appearance in Captain America: Civil War, well before  Ant-Man and the Wasp hits theaters. Since Lilly has been signed to the usual multi-film deal, it’s likely she’ll appear in other MCU movies as well, but probably not until she dons her Wasp gear in the sequel. This means that if a solo film for Wasp does ever happen, it could be a long ways away.

Lilly is already popular as an action-oriented actress, proving she can handle the role of tough heroine well on the TV series Lost and the big screen trilogy of The Hobbit. Many comic book fans have been clamoring for more female superheroes in film, and if Wasp really does get a chance to be a kick-ass hero in Ant-Man and the Wasp, viewers will likely be very supportive of seeing her branch out for her own story. The success of non-costumed, unconventional hero Jessica Jones on Netflix’s newest streaming series shows that viewers are happy to see any Marvel heroine out there as long as the stories and production are done well. So while it may take awhile for Wasp to get a solo project, getting another strong, intelligent woman (with pretty cool powers) on the screen would be worth the wait.

Captain America: Civil War will release on May 6, 2016, followed by Doctor Strange – November 4, 2016; Guardians of the Galaxy 2 – May 5, 2017; Spider-Man – July 28, 2017; Thor: Ragnarok – November 3, 2017; Black Panther – February 16, 2018; The Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 – May 4, 2018; Ant-Man and the Wasp – July 6, 2018; Captain Marvel – March 8, 2019; The Avengers: Infinity War Part 2 – May 3, 2019; Inhumans – July 12, 2019; and as-yet untitled Marvel movies on May 1, July 10 and November 6, 2020.

Source: IGN