The filmmaker spent a lot of time developing the film, but when they already had the main cast in full.
Ant-Man has already come a long way in the Marvel Cinematic Universe: Three solo films behind him and appearances in ensemble films such as Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Endgame. The character, played by Paul Rudd, is already a veteran of the franchise and has just released Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumaniathe third installment of the trilogy that, in addition to starting the phase 5 of the study, has introduced the new Thanos: Kang (Jonathan Majors). However, the saga could have been different if the original plans had been maintained.
when it was announced ant man, the character’s first solo film, Edgar Wright was attached as the project’s director. The filmmaker, known for the Cornetto Trilogy and movies like Last night in Soho and Baby Driverwas eight years developing the script with Joe Cornish. However, when the main cast led by Rudd, Evangeline Lilly as hope van dyne/Wasp and Michael Douglas as Hank Pym was entrenched, Wright abandoned the project.
The departure of the director was described, in an official statement, as a consequence of the “differences in their vision of the film” with the study.
Cornish spoke about what happened last January and attributed the abandonment to the fact that Wright was too much of an author for Marvel Studios. According to the filmmaker’s partner, when they first contacted them, superhero movies weren’t that popular. But, of course, things changed over the years and the panorama was totally different.
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“Marvel didn’t necessarily want the arthouse movie that Edgar and I wanted to make because, at the time, they had this giant on their hands. They had this universe that the movies had to be embedded into. Edgar is an author. Edgar Wright makes Edgar Wright movies. In the end, that’s why it didn’t happen, I guess.“he said in Playlist.
Although Wright and Cornish left the film, they received writing credits for ant man. Wright, for his part, stated in an interview with uproxx that he wasn’t going to talk bad about the movie because his friends were in it. “Paul Rudd is my friend and we still are”he declared in 2017. But, among the other things that Wright said is that he will never see that film:
I haven’t seen it and I haven’t even seen the trailer. It would be like asking myself if I want to see my ex-girlfriend having sex.’ Like: ‘No. I’m fine
Wright even confessed that he was on a plane and the person in the seat next to me started to see ant man and he didn’t even watch the film out of the corner of his eye. “The closest I’ve ever been is when someone sitting next to me on a flight was watching it. And when I saw that the person next to me was going to watch it, I thought, ‘Maybe I’ll do some computer work.’
After Wright’s departure from the project, Peyton Reed replaced him in the director’s chair. The latter already has a trilogy at Marvel as a director. And, once Marvel had its new filmmaker, Wright and Cornish’s script underwent some changes at the hands of Red, Rudd and Adam McKay. The final result was released in 2015. The rest is history.
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