Disappointing news out of the Marvel offices today. According to Variety, Edgar Wright is taking his stuff and going home. That's right, you heard me correctly. Due to "differences in the vision of their film" Edgar Wright has stepped away from the Ant-Man project that he has been working on, on and off, since 2006.
This seriously sucks! I am not happy about this news at all...
Although a large part of the Avengers in the comic book world, Ant-Man is a relatively unknown property to the general public. Much like the hiring of James Gunn to direct the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy, Edgar Wright was an orthodox, but very interesting choice to helm the project. Wright is a bold film-maker, with a distinct vision, and I was looking forward to his take on one of Marvel's more interesting characters. Apparently, that's not going to happen now.
Now, this project has had it's ups and downs along the way, so, although disappointing, in the grand scheme of things, it's not really surprising. The development of the film began back before the release of the original Iron Man, and initial word out of Wright's camp in 2010 was that Ant Man wouldn't be part of the MCU, as it didn't really fit with the origin story that he had written for the character. Needless to say, Kevin Feige and Marvel were probably not pleased to hear this, as they are working very, very hard to make sure that everything in the MCU lines up just perfectly. By 2011 there had been three drafts of the script submitted. By early 2013, Kevin Feige was still talking about the script being modified to fit into the MCU. You can see where this is going, can't you? Wright still maintained that Ant-Man was a standalone film and that "it is pretty standalone in the way that we're linking it to the others." Although Marvel set an initial release date of November 6, 2015 (which they eventually pushed up to July 31, 2015) and pre-production began in the fall of 2013, it was obvious that Feige and Wright were still at odds in regards to this property and where it would fit in Marvel's overall, big picture, universe.
And then, Paul Rudd was cast as Scott Lang... very outside the box, but very interesting!... and Michael Douglas was cast as Hank Pym... again, outside the box and very, very interesting! And suddenly, this was a very, very, very interesting property. A little unorthodox, a little quirky, it along with GOTG showed that Marvel was willing to take risks. And all of us comic book nerds held our breath in anticipation...
And now here we are, 13 months out from the release of the film, and the director has packed up and moved on to bigger? better? more interesting? things. While this is disappointing, the real problem comes in regards to the script. Is Edgar Wright pulling a Bryan Singer (who famously left the third X-Men film, taking his script with him to direct Superman Returns)? Because if that's the case, then Marvel is screwed. Like, seriously screwed! I honestly can't see, if their visions of how and what the characters are, are so different, how Wright and writing partner Joe Cornish would leave their script with Kevin Feige and Marvel, unless they were contractually obligated to. And, without a script, Marvel is never going to make it's July 2015 release date. The movie hasn't started filming yet (production isn't slated to start until the fall, although isn't that a little late? Is it just me? I mean, isn't this going to be a pretty heavy special effects laden movie? Is that enough time to do all that?), meaning there is no way to tell where exactly in pre-production they are with the project.
Word is that Marvel already has a new director mind, so I would expect an announcement of some kind in the next few days. It will be interesting to see who they have chosen to replace Wright. No matter who it is, there will always be the rumblings of "But what would we have gotten if Wright had chosen to complete this project?" As sweaty movie nerds, we never seem to be content. And when studios make decisions like this one, I can understand our anger and confusion. Let's just hope that, whomever they choose, that director knocks it out of the park, and the only question we ask is "Edgar who?"
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