How That NSFW Ant-Man And Thanos Theory Became MCU Canon

When the first preview voyages for Disney Cruise Line's newest ship, the Disney Wish, took to the ocean, there was an interesting and slightly disturbing piece of Marvel Cinematic Universe information given to the world. During the Worlds of Marvel dining experience, Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) and Evangeline Lilly (Wasp) appear in a pre-taped presentation to give a demonstration of quantum science. Of course, not before Rudd's Scott Lang puts his foot in his mouth, though.

As previously reported, Lang touches on a fan-favorite MCU theory. Why didn't Ant-Man simply shrink himself down, enter the butt of Thanos, and then turn giant, thus eliminating the mad titan? "I've heard a lot of chatter out there asking why I didn't shrink down, go in, and kill Thanos in a really creative way," he said in the video. "First of all, gross. Secondly, it's much more complicated than that." Of course, that's where Wasp cuts him off.

How, exactly, did that end up in a Disney-sanctioned piece of MCU canon, though? Strangely enough, you can thank Loki executive producer Michael Waldron for it.

Speaking to GameSpot during a preview cruise aboard the Disney Wish, Walt Disney Imagineering senior creative director Danny Handke walked us through the process.

"The direction and the script come from Imagineering. We develop it and we have a partner at Marvel Studios, whose name is Dave Bushore," he explained. "We usually bring in a Marvel writer to polish the script and it happened to be [Loki executive producer] Michael Waldron. Kevin [Feige] brought in Michael specifically to help punch up some of the jokes and he added the Thanos joke."

At first, Handke and his team weren't sure they would even be allowed to make that particular joke. However, it ultimately made sense in terms of the story being told. Said Handke, "This is one of [Scott's] first speaking engagements post-Endgame. So what would it be like? He's public now, more people know who Ant-Man is. We've seen Avengers Con in the first episode of Ms. Marvel and he has a podcast."

Once the joke made some kind of sense, in terms of the story being told, the team moved on to Rudd. After all, this was all for nothing if he didn't want to make the joke. Thankfully, he was on board--after he did a little work on the delivery himself.

"When we went to Paul, Paul crafted it in his own words, and that's how it comes across the way it does," Handke said. "In a very Paul way, he delivered it so beautifully and then Evangeline's reaction to it was just priceless."

In addition to Ant-Man and Wasp, a number of other MCU characters appear in the Worlds of Marvel experience--all via video screen. The event sees Captain America (Anthony Mackie), Ms. Marvel (Iman Vellani), and Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) all pop up to help take care of an invasion of Ultron robots, which are voiced by The Walking Dead star Ross Marquand. Marquand previously voiced Ultron in Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, along with Marvel's What If...? Disney+ series.

Worlds of Marvel is an exclusive experience available only to those aboard the Disney Wish cruise ship.