Edgar Wright is finally opening up in greater detail about his abrupt exit from the MCU's Ant-Man just over 10 years since the film's release.
As fans of the franchise likely know, the 51-year-old filmmaker was originally slated to produce his own version of Ant-Man following his successful run directing Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World throughout the late 2000s and early 2010s.
Sadly, such a long-time passion project for Wright ultimately came to naught. Following prolonged creative differences between himself and Marvel, the Baby Driver director chose to step away from the project, leading Ant-Man to continue forward in production with Peyton Reed attached as director.
Opening up on the creative debacle, Wright spoke about his decision to leave Ant-Man behind in a recent interview. In it, Wright said that he was originally inspired to make his own version of Ant-Man. However, by the time Marvel had set up production on the 2015 superhero film, the company had already established a set style and tone that failed to mesh with Wright's creative ideas.
"The reason I wanted to do [Ant-Man] in the first place was because I was inspired by the people who had got to do the first of something, and kind of set the pace," Wright explained, referencing Tim Burton's Batman as a primary example.
"That movie, when it came out, it was both the biggest movie of the year by far and also so idiosyncratic and specific to Tim Burton," Wright said. "And incredibly quirky for a big studio movie. And I think that you felt that when Sam Raimi did Spider-Man, you felt that when Chris Nolan did Batman Begins."
While Wright and Marvel failed to reach a compromise, the Running Man director mentioned that he and MCU head Kevin Feige remained on friendly terms nowadays, harboring few ill feelings for Ant-Man.
"Me and Kevin Feige have actually made up in recent years," Wright said. "When I did that Empire magazine [piece], I got him to do a piece for it, and it was actually the first email that we'd had together in like six years. And it was actually kind of sweet that we actually started talking talking again."