Longtime MCU fans will likely know the behind-the-scenes story of the first Ant-Man film. It was originally set to be helmed by director Edgar Wright of Shaun of the Dead and Scott Pilgrim fame. In fact, Wright was attached to the project going almost as far back as the inception of Marvel Studios as we know it.
Ultimately, and much to the chagrin of Wright's fans, he departed Ant-Man due to creative differences. Marvel brought on Peyton Reed, the story was rewritten, and the rest is history.
It was always assumed by some that there was perhaps a bit of bad blood between Edgar Wright and Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige but Wright himself has taken to clearing things up.
NO REAL ANT-IMOSITY
Speaking to Empire, Edgar Wright firstly cleared up any misconceptions regarding his relationship with Marvel Studios and Kevin Feige:
“You know, there wasn’t any real animosity or outright hostility between us, it was all very diplomatic at the time, but in that situation you go your separate ways and there was no reason to get back in touch. So I just had never spoken to him or vice versa. Aside from the movie itself, we had been friends, so it was a sad thing – aside from the professional aspect of it, we had been good pals.”
It is reassuring to know that the two on friendly terms. Perhaps a future collaboration isn't out of the question?
What's more is that the director and Feige recently had a chance to reconnect. At one point, Wright had called upon people to list their favorite movie moments and, naturally, he received a large amount of MCU scenes in return. Therefore, he felt it was only right that he reach out to Feige to say hello:
“I thought it would be disingenuous of me to get through this article without mentioning the ‘M’ word once... So I did what I hadn’t done in six years – I just emailed Kevin. It was a really nice thing, and Kevin was really touched that I’d reached out to him directly and just said, ‘Hey’.
Wright continued to elaborate on their amicable interaction:
"Also it was funny after six years of no contact to email him just saying, ‘Kevin, I need you to write something for me, and I need it tomorrow!’ So it was nice, we basically reconnected over this article and it was very sweet. I’m very glad I did it, and I was very happy that his response was so- he was really touched that I had reached out, and I feel what he wrote was great. I told him that I read what he’d said about Aliens to James Cameron, which he said was just wild. So it was nice, it’s a nice happy ending to that story.”
ALL IS WRIGHT BETWEEN EDGAR AND MARVEL
So, all's well. that ends well. It's always nice to see people in the entertainment industry get along, given that there often seems to be hard feelings between movie studios and actors or directors that stepped away from high profile projects.
As mentioned above, could there be room for a new MCU/Edgar Wright collaboration going forward? Well, judging by Wright's words it doesn't really seem to be on his radar. But as we've learned with the MCU, never say never.
As for the Ant-Man franchise, its third installment, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is slated to begin production this year for a 2022 release.
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