While 2015’s Ant-Man was a welcome addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the character has gone on to be a trilogy-worthy one, one does wonder what Edgar Wright – who was once attached as director – could have done with the movie before he left over that old Hollywood chestnut of “creative differences.” But, sadly, we will never see Edgar Wright’s take on Ant-Man, partly due to the writer/director not wanting to see other MCU characters in it – which sort of goes against the whole universe aspect…
According to Ant-Man editor Colby Parker Jr., Edgar Wright likely wouldn’t have featured Anthony Mackie’s Falcon (aka Sam Wilson), who made his debut in the previous year’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier. “I don’t think there would have been any other Marvel characters set up. I think he was going to be a standalone. He didn’t want any other Marvel characters in the film… I don’t think the Falcon would have been in Ant-Man.” Adding to this, Parker Jr. remembered another big difference within Wright’s script. “His film, it was still heist film. But remember how we have three mains. I think there were, like, 15 people within the gang, the gang that was going to do the big heist. I remember I never got to see his script. But I remember hearing that once in discussions when all the big muckety mucks were in the room… [The heist] was going to be more of a collaborative effort and more of a 15-hander than a three-hander…”
Edgar Wright has previously spoken about feeling like a “director for hire” within the Marvel machine – a key reason for his leaving Ant-Man – which falls pretty much in line with comments made by Quentin Tarantino. One man who had no problem with this is Peyton Reed, who would go on to direct the entire Ant-Man trilogy, which has pulled in $1.6 billion worldwide at the box office.
While the list of projects Edgar Wright will likely never make is filled with “What if…”s (speaking of QT, remember when he was going to make a feature out of Grindhouse’s Don’t trailer?), ditching Ant-Man was probably for the best. Who wants an Edgar Wright movie that isn’t really an Edgar Wright movie?
How do you think an Edgar Wright-directed Ant-Man would have turned out? Would it have truly fit with Marvel’s vision? Give us your thoughts below!