Joe Cornish, the Ant-Man writer who is also known for Attack the Block and The Kid Who Would be King, revealed in an interview with Playlist some new details behind Edgar Wright’s Ant-Man exit. Although Wright has stated before that he left for creative differences, Cornish said that the issues likely started much earlier.
“When Edgar and I first met Marvel, they were in offices above a BMW showroom in Beverly Hills,” Cornish said. He described a business that was still struggling to find its footing in film — this was pre-Iron Man after all. Cornish and Wright worked on Ant-Man for nearly a decade, but in between their argreement with Marvel and production time, “the landscape changed completely.”
He described Wright’s auteurship evolving over that time as well. In this period in his career, he went on to direct Hot Fuzz and the comic book adaptation Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. His style was not Marvel’s style, and Cornish thinks this might have been a reason that the exit happened. “Marvel didn’t necessarily want the authored movie that Edgar and I wanted to make because, at that point, they had… this universe where the movies had to integrate. Edgar is an auteur. Edgar Wright makes Edgar Wright movies. In the end, that’s why it didn’t happen, I guess.”
It makes sense that Marvel, which famously makes movies that almost all look the same due to its VFX process, wouldn’t have been in love with whatever Wright dreamed up. The idea that Marvel would say no to Wright is baffling, as I cannot imagine asking someone to do a less cool version of whatever Wright wanted. At any rate, they didn’t need each other: Ant-Man is still going (Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, directed by Peyton Reed and written by Jeff Loveness, is out February 17) as is Wright, who has a slate of projects lined up after his 2021 double-punch of Last Night in Soho and music documentary The Sparks Brothers.
While you’re here, why not check out Gizmodo Australia’s guide to what’s streaming this month on Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+, Stan, Binge and more. We’ve also got one for all the good movies coming out in 2023 if that’s more your thing.