The journey of "Ant-Man" from the comic book panel to the big screen has been a long and arduous one. Back in 2006, Edgar Wright ("Shaun of the Dead") announced his plans to helm a film adaptation for Marvel Studios. But constant delays and required re-writes kept the film sidelined until May of last year. At that point, with principal photography about to being, Wright suddenly walked away from the film, citing the age old "creative differences" as the reason for his departure.
Fans of Wright's signature visual storytelling and witty humor were no doubt disappointed and a bit confused. That includes "Avengers" director Joss Whedon.
"I thought the script was not only the best script that Marvel had ever had, but the most Marvel script I'd read," Whedon said in an interview with BuzzFeed. "I had no interest in 'Ant-Man.' [Then] I read the script, and was like, 'Of course! This is so good!' It reminded me of the books when I read them. Irreverent and funny could make what was small large, and vice versa. I don't know where things went wrong. But I was very sad. Because I thought, 'This is a no-brainer. This is Marvel getting it exactly right.' Whatever dissonance that came, whatever it was, I don't understand why it was bigger than a marriage that seemed so right. But I'm not going to say it was definitely all Marvel, or Edgar's gone mad! I felt like they would complement each other by the ways that they were different. And, uh, somethin' happened."
We may never find out what exactly caused the split, but we do know that Marvel head honcho Kevin Feige recruited Adam McKay ("Anchorman") and Paul Rudd to punch up the story with "bigger, more aggressive" action sequences. Whether or not that translates to a better movie remains to be seen.
I will say one thing, I tend to trust the guy who ushered in the third-highest grossing film of all time and one of the most beloved TV series of the last 25 years. If Whedon says Wright's script was good then it was probably pretty good.