Edgar Wright’s Ant-Man Script Was “The Best Marvel Ever Had,” According To Joss Whedon

Long before Marvel’s Ant-Man began to catch the eye of moviegoers with its clever, micro-sized marketing campaign and quirky trailers, the studio was busy quelling the kerfuffle that followed Edgar Wright’s abrupt departure from the superhero project in May of last year. Even to this day, not much is known about the specifics of the fallout — creative differences is the general go-to term — but the verdict left many fans of the director disappointed that his longstanding vision for the atypical hero wouldn’t grace the silver screen after all.

Now that the dust has somewhat settled ahead of the film’s July release, Joss Whedon has spoke out about Wright’s decision to leave and, specifically, the early script he had produced, which he claims was not only one of the best scripts he’s read, but also one that perfectly suited the Marvel legacy. Speaking with BuzzFeed during a press round for Avengers: Age of Ultron, here’s what the fan favorite filmmaker had to share.

“I thought the script was not only the best script that Marvel had ever had, but the most Marvel script I’d read. 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 and 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.”

Alas, it’s unlikely we’ll ever uncover the finer details behind Edgar Wright’s departure, though the general consensus appears to be that the filmmaker left the project due to Marvel’s insistence on incorporating elements from the grander MCU into the script. The jury is still out on whether that was indeed the case, though all we can do now is bemoan Wright’s rendition of Scott Lang and Co. that never was.

Ant-Man will scurry into theaters on July 17.