It was the news bombshell that shook the internet for film fans all over the world on Friday – the announcement that beloved visionary director Edgar Wright had exited stage-left from Marvel’s Ant-Man project. It felt like the massive Marvel money-making machine was slipping the news out on a Friday afternoon before a long weekend to perhaps limit the damage – a theory supported by the incredibly benign wording of the statement:
“Marvel and Edgar Wright jointly announced today that the studio and director have parted ways on ANT-MAN due to differences in their vision of the film. The decision to move on is amicable and does not impact the release date on July 17, 2015. A new director will be announced shortly.”
Fans could not be fooled, however, and the internet seemed to let out a collective cry of “What?! WHY?!” The reason it made no sense, is that Edgar Wright is really the only reason an Ant-Man film was happening in the first place – and he had been officially developing it since 2006. Almost certainly for longer, in reality, in order to get to the point of developing it ‘officially.’ That’s a decade of work, by the unique artist that delivered Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World as well as what is now affectionately referred to as The Cornetto Trilogy.
Clearly, there had been some devastating and irreparable seismic activity within the production to make the director feel that his only remaining option was to walk away, and no number of passive missives from the studio would prevent fans from demanding an explanation. Less than 24 hours later, Latino Review has some information that they say is corroborated by viable Marvel sources.
Though a wide variety of rumours began flying immediately – including everything from ‘He was fired for taking too long’ to ‘Maybe he’s switched to a Star Wars spin-off’ – almost all were clearly untrue. With no confirmation from the players themselves, it was left to fans to join the dots. Oftentimes, that is a pointless exercise as there aren’t usually many real dots to join in these kinds of circumstances. Not so with this news, however. With this news, it’s becoming pretty clear what seems to have happened.
Published: May 24, 2014 01:45 pm