Edgar Wright Stepped Down From Directing ‘Ant-Man’ Because He Wasn’t Allowed to Write It
Edgar Wright is a rarity in the modern film industry. The writer-director is one of the few people in Hollywood who can convince major studios to give him larger budgets for movies that aren’t based on an existing IP. But there was a moment when he was all set to take his talents to the Marvel Cinematic Universe to direct Ant-Man, but Wright eventually left the project after disagreements over the script and story.
As intriguing as it would be to see what Wright would’ve done with the material, neither party has really been affected by the split. They’ve both succeeded while staying in their preferred lanes.
A fight over control led to Wright’s ‘Ant-Man’ departure
Collider reports Wright spent a lot of time thinking about what an Ant-Man movie would be like. He and fellow director Joe Cornish wrote a treatment for the character in 2003 before Marvel Studios was even created, and the MCU version was announced in 2006 alongside the first Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America.
The new script was completed in 2008, but with Phase One well in motion, Wright continued to work on other projects, directing Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and The World’s End in the meantime. After shooting a test reel that was shown at the 2012 San Diego Comic-Con, production moved forward and all of the main characters were cast, but problems began to mount just before filming was set to start in June 2014.
Marvel became skittish around the script, which Wright described as more of a standalone story. He and Cornish rewrote the script twice without making any headway before Marvel commissioned another rewrite from their in-house writing team – which completely removed Wright’s unique tone and voice. The filmmaker left as a result and later summarized his frustrations on an episode of Variety’s Playback Podcast.
“I wanted to make a Marvel movie but I don’t think they really wanted to make an Edgar Wright movie,” he explained.
“I was the writer-director on it and then they wanted to do a draft without me, and having written all my other movies, that’s a tough thing to move forward thinking if I do one of these movies I would like to be the writer-director. Suddenly becoming a director-for-hire on it, you’re sort of less emotionally invested and you start to wonder why you’re there, really.”
Marvel pivoted and got a solid movie in the end
There was some disappointment from the wider film community that an artist like Wright couldn’t find a way to move forward in this ecosystem, but the Marvel Machine pauses for no man. Adam McKay, Paul Rudd, and writers Gabriel Ferrari and Andrew Barrer did the final rewrites on Wright and Cornish’s original screenplay, and Peyton Reed was chosen as the new director. Filming finally took place in August and went off without a hitch.
The finished product accomplished the goals that matter most to Marvel. Ant-Man received decent reviews, made half a billion dollars at the box office, and introduced another likable hero for Kevin Feige to play with as he oversees the future of the franchise. A sequel, Ant-Man and the Wasp, came out in 2018, and a third, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, is scheduled for release in February 2023.
Wright continues to be one of the most creative filmmakers around
Wright’s career hasn’t suffered at all from not making someone else’s blockbuster.
His work on the “Cornetto Trilogy” already made him an icon among a generation of cinephiles, and in the wake of the Ant-Man departure, he turned to an old script of his and made the biggest hit of his career, Baby Driver.
Even after multiple successes, Wright remains an unpredictable director. His last two projects are a documentary on the underground pop duo Sparks and Last Night in Soho, his attempt at a psychological thriller. Both Wright and Marvel are probably better off making the movies they want to make instead of twisting themselves into knots working together.
