In an absolutely shocking announcement, Edgar Wright has left the production of Ant-Man; a film he worked and fought for so long to make happen. Details after the jump.
Since 2006 Edgar Wright has been attached as a lead creative person with developing an Ant-Man film. He went as far as filming test footage to demonstrate how he would brink the comic character to the screen to show the executives over at Marvel that is was possible. So, once the film was officially announced with a release date and the actor Paul Rudd (who many could see easily fitting in to Wright’s style of humor) many became excited to see what could possibly happen, but now we are left scratching our heads wondering, “What could possibly have happened?”
Marvel tried to clear the situation up slightly in a statement about Wright’s leaving of the film saying the studio and the director parted ways, “due to differences in their vision of the film.” Which, honestly shouldn’t be too surprising that the two have different ideas because much has happened with Marvel’s Cinematic Universe since Wright first starting dreaming up what an Ant-Man film could be.
Don’t be worried that the release date for Ant-Man will be pushed back due to Wright’s departure though because the studio has confirmed the release date of July 17, 2015 is staying the same. Marvel is close to finding a replacement for Wright stating, “a new director will be announced shortly.”
After successfully releasing a handful of loved films (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, World’s End, Scott Pilgrim vs The World) audiences become excited seeing the name Edgar Wright attached to a new project, but now the dedicated fans of Wright will have to be sad knowing they will never see the vision the director has played out on screen.
What is your reaction to Wright leaving? Do you have your own ideal replacement in mind? Tell us all in the comments.
via Variety?
3 Comments
That can’t be good.. I want to trust Marvel studios they’ve had good judgement so far, but what could they have wanted/not wanted so badly that Wright would have left. He’s a great director. Maybe a game of creative chicken went too far and we are looking at the collision?
My first thought was Edgar Wright? Who the heck is Edgar Wright? Then I saw the list of his movies, none of which I cared to see, which explains my glaring ignorance. My second thought is that we are talking about an “Ant Man” movie, and Ant Man has all the social significance of, say, a Batroc the Leaper. Even Aquaman has a larger fan base.
It’s rarely a good thing when a director leaves a movie in mid-production. Of course, there are rare exceptions where a change of directors was a good thing. I like most of Del Toro’s movies, but when he started talking about making Smaug the shape of a flying battle axe instead of a traditional dragon, and taking the visual effects in a different direction than Jackson had in LOTR, I felt little hope for the Hobbit movies until Peter Jackson returned to the helm. I had nightmares about elves with eyeballs on their hands, insectoid orcs, etc.
Getting back to the Ant Man movie, I don’t see how Wright, given the kind of movies he’s made, would have been a good fit for a superhero movie. I suspect we would have gotten something along the lines of the Lone Ranger movie – a quirky comedy that pays no respect to the source material. So hiring a director who only does quirky comedies to direct an action-adventure movie does not strike me as a very bright move on Disney/Marvel’s part to begin with. The studio letting him go in the middle of production would seem to imply that Disney finally realized their mistake and now will have to rush to find somebody to salvage the project. This does not bode well for the final movie.
Of course, I never thought that expanding the Marvel Movie universe to encompass the lesser characters like Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant Man was a good idea to begin with. I would rather have Marvel/Disney reclaim the FF series and redeem it, or take back the SpiderMan franchise. Or make a movie of some property I actually cared about like Adam Warlock or Doctor Strange. However, I could be wrong about that: I didn’t think making Thor movies was a good idea, for exactly the same reasons, and they proved me wrong there.
I think you should check out the action sequences in Scott Pilgrim and the promo reel Wright shot for Ant Man before deciding he wasn’t cut out for directing a superhero movie.