Ant-Man just lost its second director in as many weeks, but one message that’s become crystal clear in the process of causing Edgar Wright to walk away from them, and Adam McKay to reject them, is that Marvel Entertainment’s clearly aiming for a comic take on one of their iconic super heros.
Consider Edgar Wright.
The work of the famous helmer of Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Scott Pigrim Versus The World, and The World’s End has a gift for making the normal look interesting and funny. And no one video captures what Wright does better than this video made by San Francisco’s Tony Zhou:
Edgar Wright – How to Do Visual Comedy from Tony Zhou on Vimeo.
Adam McKay is the legendary writer and director of Anchorman, Anchorman 2, and The Hangover. Called in to replace Wright, who was upset over what he believed was Marvel’s butchering of his script, McKay was excited to meet the heart and souls of Marvel, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, but says they could not make their schedule’s work together.
Whatever the real reason, Ant-Man’s on course to become the first comedy in the history of Marvel movies. While Marvel’s head Kevin Feigh has yet to weigh in on this, it looks like the firm’s stuck with the basic foundation of what Wright came up with, and that was visual comedy.
What’s more obvious as I think about it, is Marvel has the really difficult task of finding a director who will faithfully replicate what Wright put together.
I think the real issue behind McKay’s departure is that he would really be tasked with bringing Marvel’s messed-up vision of Wright’s story to life, and not his own.
So, he walked away.
And that has to push back the production start date beyond July 28th.
Stay tuned.
Bill Carroll