Ant-Man Edgar Wright Leaves Ant-Man!! - Part 1

[TheVision]

LMAO!! Imagining a Terence Malick (spoof) Ant Man film is hilarious.

*Shot of ants*

Hank Pym VO: I look at these ants....theyre small....like people are....

*Shot of the sky*

....What IS a hero?........is it someone who does whats right?.....

*Shot of a clothesline with shirts flapping in breeze*

....Ants.....in my pants........they itch....they bite...

*Shot of sun setting*

Now I am an Ant MAN.....As small as them....I feel what they feel....the sun....the rain...

 

[Paradox1]

I see this situation like that story of king Solomon and the splitting of the child between two mothers. If you love it instead of watching it become unrecognizable you walk away.

 

[Dwarf Slayer]

I can see both sides:

Fiege/Marvel: They have an overarching plan and don't want Edgar making any story decisions that might impact that plan. These are Marvel's characters and they have final say.

Wright: Marvel personally sought him out and have been working with him for 6 years. Given that and his track record, you'd think they would trust his film-making decisions.

My take: This obviously goes way deeper than Marvel vs Wright. Marvel is building up quite the track record of disputes with directors/actors. I think it speaks pretty loudly that Marvel has had very little of their directors return. The case could be made that Marvel simply chose to keep the directors whose films garnered the most critical acclaim (Jon Favreau, Joss Whedon, and the Russos). I think that it's more than that though. I get the sense that Marvel believes they are the absolute authority when it comes to comic book movies. On paper, they certainly have a case. Their movies always make a lot of money. Critically though, I don't think their track record is nearly as spotless as some of the more diehard fans would have you believe. Film-making should always be a collaborative process. Given the rumors about Thor 2 and the final cut of that film, I'm not so sure that Marvel believes that. As a creative, I can understand not wanting to treated as a rent-a-director (ala Brett Ratner) who is just their to film a script and appease the studio. Obviously, Edgar Wright and Marvel were willing to work together though. Otherwise he wouldn't have worked on Ant-Man for 6 years. It also strikes me as strange that Wright didn't get the movie made during that time. He chose to work on Scott Pilgrim and The World's End over it. Could Marvel just not afford to do more 2 movies a year at the time? Was Wright just not happy with the script and just spent those years revising until he was finally happy? I don't know. I can see how Edgar Wright would be very upset if he spent all that time crafting his script into something he'd be happy with. Only to have Marvel send the script back having been "fixed" by an in-house writer who is only there to appease the studio.

 

[Tony Stark]

I'm sure all the directors who have left Marvel are just pretentious *****, and not people who had studio meddling put upon them and were unwilling to continue working under such constraints. I'm sure that all of these talented directors who have had no trouble working with any other studio were pretentious uncooperative egomaniacs trying to force their *****ey visions on Marvel and Marvel was simply oh so patient with them until Feige's immense patience was finally pushed to it's limit and he had to let them go, for the good of the individual films. He didn't want to, but they just pushed him too far. All of them, who only have problems with Marvel Studios. Wright is simply the most prolific case, but directors have been being pretentious *******s when it comes to Marvel Studios for a while now. I'm glad to see this issue is coming to light. It's the studio that cares about the art and the characters, the directors just care about what makes money.

I love writing fanfiction.

The problem is, last year when the studio backed the "director's vision", these message boards went ape **** over changes to the Mandarin. There were people saying all kinds of terrible things about Feige over that because he backed Shane Black's vision for that character.

There are people to this day who call Iron Man 3 the worst comic book movie ever because of those changes, all due to Shane Black's vision. (FTR I am not one of them)

Now Wright is making radical changes to the characters, and it's OK because it's Edgar Wright, and how dare Feige and company interfere with his creative decisions, and it's Buster Keaton all over, etc., etc.

Seems like a crap load of hypocrisy, if you asked me.

 

[The Question]

The problem is, last year when the studio backed the "director's vision", these message boards went ape **** over changes to the Mandarin. There were people saying all kinds of terrible things about Feige over that because he backed Shane Black's vision for that character.

There are people to this day who call Iron Man 3 the worst comic book movie ever because of those changes, all due to Shane Black's vision. (FTR I am not one of them)

Now Wright is making radical changes to the characters, and it's OK because it's Edgar Wright, and how dare Feige and company interfere with his creative decisions, and it's Buster Keaton all over, etc., etc.

Seems like a crap load of hypocrisy, if you asked me.

I can't speak for DrCosmic, but Iron Man 3 is one of my favorite comic book movies, it's easily one of the highest quality CBMs ever made, and I thought their adaptation of The Mandarin was genius. I think every argument about how it was a "betrayal" or how Shane Black "raped" the character was absolute nonsense, and in the case of the latter statement, deeply offensive.

 

[BoredGuy]

IM3 was great, because of the director's vision
Thor 2 was weak because the director had no vision

so obviously having a unique take is better than not
That said, to take 6+ years to nail down that vision is hard to justify

 

[Mrs. Sawyer]

The bottom line is that Feige and Wright just didn't see eye to eye. Marvel has a track record of treating their character with the respect and care they deserve. They just simply didn't agree with Wright's vision and Wright didn't want to just film a script that isn't his own creation with ideas he wasn't 100% fond of. No one is wrong, but in the end it ended up being a relationship that wasn't compatible.

 

[Mrs. Sawyer]

I can't speak for DrCosmic, but Iron Man 3 is one of my favorite comic book movies, it's easily one of the highest quality CBMs ever made, and I thought their adaptation of The Mandarin was genius. I think every argument about how it was a "betrayal" or how Shane Black "raped" the character was absolute nonsense, and in the case of the latter statement, deeply offensive.

Agreed. I actually don't have any problems with the twist. My problem lied more with Killian's character and that twist the ended up being Killian.

 

[Eddie Dean]

LMAO!! Imagining a Terence Malick (spoof) Ant Man film is hilarious.

*Shot of ants*

Hank Pym VO: I look at these ants....theyre small....like people are....

*Shot of the sky*

....What IS a hero?........is it someone who does whats right?.....

*Shot of a clothesline with shirts flapping in breeze*

....Ants.....in my pants........they itch....they bite...

*Shot of sun setting*

Now I am an Ant MAN.....As small as them....I feel what they feel....the sun....the rain...

Mother... father... Always these ants wrestle inside of my pants... always they will...


Ants. Where do they come from? Who put these ants in our pants? No war can shake them out, conquer it. I was a prisoner. The ants set me free.

 

[TheVileOne]

I can see both sides:

Fiege/Marvel: They have an overarching plan and don't want Edgar making any story decisions that might impact that plan. These are Marvel's characters and they have final say.

Wright: Marvel personally sought him out and have been working with him for 6 years. Given that and his track record, you'd think they would trust his film-making decisions.

My take: This obviously goes way deeper than Marvel vs Wright. Marvel is building up quite the track record of disputes with directors/actors. I think it speaks pretty loudly that Marvel has had very little of their directors return. The case could be made that Marvel simply chose to keep the directors whose films garnered the most critical acclaim (Jon Favreau, Joss Whedon, and the Russos). I think that it's more than that though. I get the sense that Marvel believes they are the absolute authority when it comes to comic book movies. On paper, they certainly have a case. Their movies always make a lot of money. Critically though, I don't think their track record is nearly as spotless as some of the more diehard fans would have you believe. Film-making should always be a collaborative process. Given the rumors about Thor 2 and the final cut of that film, I'm not so sure that Marvel believes that. As a creative, I can understand not wanting to treated as a rent-a-director (ala Brett Ratner) who is just their to film a script and appease the studio. Obviously, Edgar Wright and Marvel were willing to work together though. Otherwise he wouldn't have worked on Ant-Man for 6 years. It also strikes me as strange that Wright didn't get the movie made during that time. He chose to work on Scott Pilgrim and The World's End over it. Could Marvel just not afford to do more 2 movies a year at the time? Was Wright just not happy with the script and just spent those years revising until he was finally happy? I don't know. I can see how Edgar Wright would be very upset if he spent all that time crafting his script into something he'd be happy with. Only to have Marvel send the script back having been "fixed" by an in-house writer who is only there to appease the studio.

Obviously more than a little of their directors have returned. Favreau returned for Iron Man 2 and he came back to act for Iron Man 3. Whedon became deeply involved with Marvel Studios, headed up Agents of SHIELD, came back for Avengers 2. He also has a position as like part of this whole Marvel think tank to participate in the other movies. We already know he did rewrites on The First Avenger as well. The Russos appear to be coming back for Captain America 3.

For the other directors, doing Marvel films worked out well for their careers. It got Louis Leterrier Clash of the Titans, which was a huge hit, regardless of reviews. Thor 2 got Alan Taylor the Terminator reboot job. Kenneth Branagh got Jack Ryan and now he's doing Cinderella for DISNEY STUDIOS! You know the guys who own Marvel? So obviously, things worked out pretty well for all the guys who worked on Marvel films and it helped their careers because of it. They used that momentum for Marvel to continue getting big directing gigs. Some of them did continue working for Marvel, and some are still deeply involved with Marvel's parent company.

 

[TheVision]

Edgar didnt deliver the goods and Marvel had to make a choice: produce a film that wasnt right for them or change it to fit in.

Mother... father... Always these ants wrestle inside of my pants... always they will...


Ants. Where do they come from? Who put these ants in our pants? No war can shake them out, conquer it. I was a prisoner. The ants set me free.

lol!

*Shot of ants eating sugar*

Why do they eat the sugar?......Is it sweet?.......Do they know what sweet is? ...what IS sweet to an ant?.....Is it the same as it is to humans?.....Now I want a chocolate bar....

 

[Mrs. Sawyer]

*ants eating Hershey's*

Chocolate, the ultimate sweetness... The one candy that can make me escape this beautiful, but hellish world...

*shots of dead ants*

Why is there such cruelty? Such anger from the world? Why kill such majestic creature for the sake of killing?

 

[Keyser Soze]

If someone hires me to come to their house and fix their leaky faucet, that's what I do. That's what the job is. I don't remodel their entire ****ing bathroom just because I think it needs it.

But if someone hires me to remodel their bathroom, and we go over the plans for that bathroom in detail, then I go and spend a long time drafting up the most ambitious blueprints of my career for this bathroom, and the client tells me they're happy with my finalised blueprints, and then I start construction..... and suddenly the client tells me to halt production, they've changed their mind.... then they tell me they got their 7-year-old to scrawl out new blueprints in crayon, and now I have to work from those scribblings if I still want the job? Do I still want my name on a project that is not the project I originally agree to? Am I bein unreasonable for opting to walk away?

 

[TheVision]

annnnnd we are in Full Beating Dead Horse Mode.

 

[Rock Sexton]

But if someone hires me to remodel their bathroom, and we go over the plans for that bathroom in detail, then I go and spend a long time drafting up the most ambitious blueprints of my career for this bathroom, and the client tells me they're happy with my finalised blueprints, and then I start construction..... and suddenly the client tells me to halt production, they've changed their mind.... then they tell me they got their 7-year-old to scrawl out new blueprints in crayon, and now I have to work from those scribblings if I still want the job? Do I still want my name on a project that is not the project I originally agree to? Am I bein unreasonable for opting to walk away?

Wright has been working in some capacity with the drafts for the movie since 2006. If I had a bathroom designer working to get me something that fits the framework of my vision for my house and took that long ..... then he's probably not the right fit.

From all indications Wright was still handing in drafts recently, before Marvel handed some duties over to their in-house writers. Btw, you comparing those guys to 7 year-old is unsubstantiated. EDIT: Corrected.

 

[Rock Sexton]

annnnnd we are in Full Beating Dead Horse Mode.

Amen brother.

 

[The Question]

Btw, you comparing those guys to 7 year-old is unsubstantiated. Since when did Wright become an award winning screen play writer anyways?

… since he won awards for writing screenplays.

 

[Rock Sexton]

… since he won awards for writing screenplays.

Oh wait, forgot about Shaun of the Dead.

 

[Whiskey Tango]

annnnnd we are in Full Beating Dead Horse Mode.

Yup.

 

[Harry Dresden]

Big mistake by Marvel.

Hopefully Warner Bumbles nabs him for a Flash movie or something.

 

[STR1]

The problem is, last year when the studio backed the "director's vision", these message boards went ape **** over changes to the Mandarin. There were people saying all kinds of terrible things about Feige over that because he backed Shane Black's vision for that character.

There are people to this day who call Iron Man 3 the worst comic book movie ever because of those changes, all due to Shane Black's vision. (FTR I am not one of them)

Now Wright is making radical changes to the characters, and it's OK because it's Edgar Wright, and how dare Feige and company interfere with his creative decisions, and it's Buster Keaton all over, etc., etc.

Seems like a crap load of hypocrisy, if you asked me.

This! Bravo!

 

[Whiskey Tango]

Big mistake by Marvel.

Hopefully Warner Bumbles nabs him for a Flash movie or something.

They might even get it made by 2022!

 

[Keyser Soze]

And yet again, I say that my issue isn't with Marvel Studios having a vision for this film that clashes with Wright's vision. As I've said before, it's perfectly within their prerogative to dictate what's in the best interests of their shared cinematic universe. My problem is, IF THESE REPORTS ARE LEGIT, that they at one point seemed perfectly happy with the creative direction, then suddenly (about 3 months ago, I believe one report said) changed their minds, and went back on what had been agreed, knowing that there then wouldn't be time to adequately make the fixes, THEN replacing Wright and Cornish as screenwriters without their knowledge.

Again, this is just speculation based on the reports we've heard, but there is nothing to suggest this is some ongoing conflict with the core direction of the film that has been brewing for years. Marvel Studios isn't fighting the corner of the disgruntled fans who disapproved of the focus on Lang or the changes to Pym. The fact any of that made it to press release stage confirms Marvel were onboard with that long ago. I think too many people, in siding with Marvel here, are projecting their own problems with Wright onto being what Marvel 's problems with Wright are.

And as far as Wright being on the project for 8 years and holding everyone up, again, we don't know the specifics of that. We don't know if the delays suited Marvel just as much as Wright. I personally can't imagine many pressing, monumental plans for Ant-Man in Phase 1 that Wright's film would have disrupted. If we get more credible reports coming out saying that the problem was Wright falling behind schedule with the production and looking like he wouldn't be ready on time, then I would respond to that by saying Marvel Studios' position in deciding to part ways is absolutely understandable and valid. But that's just not the story we're hearing right now.

 

[Keyser Soze]

The problem is, last year when the studio backed the "director's vision", these message boards went ape **** over changes to the Mandarin. There were people saying all kinds of terrible things about Feige over that because he backed Shane Black's vision for that character.

There are people to this day who call Iron Man 3 the worst comic book movie ever because of those changes, all due to Shane Black's vision. (FTR I am not one of them)

Now Wright is making radical changes to the characters, and it's OK because it's Edgar Wright, and how dare Feige and company interfere with his creative decisions, and it's Buster Keaton all over, etc., etc.

Seems like a crap load of hypocrisy, if you asked me.

I have a lot of respect for Feige and Marvel Studios, but they'd go way down in my estimations if it turned out they were seriously letting the whining of The perpetually miserable superhero message board community dictate their creative direction. Iron Man 3 was the second-highest grossing film of 2013, and Marvel Studios' highest grossing solo film yet. In all the ways that count, it was a massive success. And there's no way I see negative backlash against one director's creative liberties informing how Marvel might react to another director.

And for the record, Iron Man 3 was great, possibly even the best of the trilogy. If you watch that as a film and not as an exercise in faithfully recreating The Mandarin for the big screen, it's a home-run. Shane Black is the best thing to happen to the Iron Man franchise since Robert Downey Jr.

 

[Dr. Evil]

I liked Iron Man 3 and Thor 2 better than most, although I could do without the annoying characters that were in either film (the Kid in IM 3, any of the humans in Thor: TDW)