So what's up with that Avenger cameo in 'Ant-Man'?

MAJOR SPOILERS FOR ANT-MAN. READ NO FURTHER IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE MOVIE.

After saving the world from flying cities, a guy who can shrink to the size of ants is probably the last thing on the Avengers' minds. But because this is the Marvel Universe, we of course get a cameo in Ant-Man from one of the newly minted Avengers: the Falcon.

And yeah, it was more than just a glorified 5-second appearance. In one of the coolest fight scenes in the movie, Ant-Man squares off against Falcon when he attempts to break into what Hank Pym thought was one of Howard Stark's old warehouses. It turns out, it's the new Avengers base (cue the hashtag #ItsAllConnected)!



According to Vulture, Falcon's cameo was not in the original script, but director Peyton Reed and co. decided to include him when they realized they needed another heist movie trope of "everything's in place, but there's one more thing we need to get!" -- and after seeing how awesome he was in Captain America: Winter Soldier.
It seemed like the right character — not a marquee character like Iron Man or Thor, but the right level of hero. And the kid in us was excited: This hero has these certain powers and this other hero has different powers, so if they fight, who's gonna win? That's what I love about the whole Marvel thing: Mackie's in Winter Soldier, a pretty serious-minded political thriller, and then he comes into our movie and he's doing light comedy.
This is the first scene we see of Scott fighting in his Ant-Man suit, complete with spontaneous shrinking and growing, and it's pretty awesome. It's also great to see the quippy Scott Lang face off against the equally snarktastic Sam Wilson (can Anthony Mackie get his own movie now? K thanx).

Scott manages to evade Sam, break down his Falcon suit and get away with the McGuffin device that Hank sent him there for in the first place. Only now Ant-Man is on the Avengers radar (though they'll never know the reason since Sam asked whoever was getting his transmissions to never tell Captain America that he got beat up by a guy the size of the ant).

WHERE DOES IT ALL LEAD?

After saving the day and his daughter, Scott is back to hanging with his old gang -- who tell him that a certain Avenger (aka Falcon) is looking for him.

Oh and in the midst of that crazy story that Luis tells, we get a hint from the Asian journalist talking to Falcon that Spider-Man is a thing:
"We got guys who jump. We got guys who swing. We got guys who climb up walls."
Looks like Scott's quiet life is about to get turned upside down once again. But what would the Avengers want with Scott? Judging by that juicy second end credits scene, Scott may be the perfect guy on the fringe that Falcon and Captain America need if they go to ... war.

For more on the cameo, listen to the Mothership podcast with director Peyton Reed: