The Real Reason Director Edgar Wright Left Marvel's Ant-Man Movie

Edgar Wright's "Ant-Man" remains one of the most tantalizing what-ifs in the history of Marvel Studios. Most fans will know that the director departed the project due to that age-old excuse of "creative differences," but there's a little more to it than that. Wright co-wrote his "Ant-Man" script with Joe Cornish long before the Marvel Cinematic Universe became an absolute juggernaut. As such, when the time came to actually make his version of the film Wright felt as though the studio's house style and significantly-altered vision for the movie had strayed too far from his original screenplay.

Wright's most recent release, "The Running Man," stumbles despite star Glen Powell's charm, but it's so far managed to avoid the dreaded green splat on Rotten Tomatoes, where it's hovering around the low 60% mark at the time of writing. Still, fans of the director will no doubt be wondering when the heck he's going to re-team with frequent collaborators Simon Pegg and Nick Frost to deliver another beloved comedy on the level of "Shaun of the Dead" or "Hot Fuzz." For a while, however, it seemed as though he could deliver without the help of his cohorts.

After "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World" impressed critics and became a modern cult classic back in 2010, Wright headed over to Marvel Studios to finally bring his script for "Ant-Man" to fruition. He was also slated to direct what seemed like the ideal Marvel project to match his distinct style, especially since it was set to star Paul Rudd, whose easy likability and comedic chops represent the perfect American counterpart to Pegg and Frost. Then, yet another development suggested Wright really was the artistic visionary many fans believed him to be: The filmmaker quit "Ant-Man."

Sure, the unmade Edgar Wright version of "Ant-Man" remains Marvel's greatest missed opportunity. But a director sticking to his creative vision in the face of pressure from the studio responsible for the biggest blockbusters in the world was an undeniably good look for Wright that suggested he was, when it came down to it, the real deal. But in reality, things weren't quite as dramatic as they might have sounded at the time.

This was not a case of Wright angrily storming out on Kevin Feige and the Marvel machine in protest over the contamination of his art. The fact was that the Marvel Studios Wright found himself working for in the early 2010s was not the same company that had released "Iron Man" in 2008 and changed Hollywood forever. By the time "Ant-Man" was about ready to go into production, Marvel Studios had established its now infamous house style, which at the time was working incredibly well, at least if you looked at the franchise's box office returns. For Wright, however, it meant he was having to tell a story he never really intended to tell. A few months before the movie was set to go into production, the director left, with he and Marvel Studios releasing a statement to say the split happened "due to differences in their vision of the film."

Since then, Wright has elaborated on the reasoning behind his exit, most recently during a Reddit AMA to promote "The Running Man." There, he revealed that his planned "left-field heist movie" version of "Ant-Man" was being slowly erased by the need to adhere to Marvel's requirements.

During his Reddit AMA, Edgar Wright provided a brief but informative overview of his "Ant-Man" exit. "Joe Cornish and I had written the script long before Marvel became as huge as it did," he explained. "Our screenplay existed before 'Iron Man' came out. But when we came to make it in 2014 — they had an established house style, a way of working, and a continuity that didn't really fit with the more left-field heist movie we'd written."

That house style worked for Marvel Studios for a long time, though it caused problems for other creatives along the way. James Gunn, for example, has spoken about the difficulties of working with Marvel's now-defunct creative committee, a group of executives who provided notes on movies. At one point, the creative committee proved so clueless that they wanted to cut the Awesome Mix from Gunn's "Guardians of the Galaxy." No doubt, a filmmaker like Wright encountered similar issues.

As the director went on to explain, he knew it was time to leave when his original screenplay began to disappear. "Our draft we loved was fading away, and I thought it better if someone else did it," he continued. "I have never seen the film to this day, but don't regret leaving." Wright previously revealed that he'd never seen the final version of "Ant-Man" which ended up being directed by Peyton Reed. Given the fact he had been attached to the movie since 2006, abandoning it after so long can't have been easy, so it's understandable that he wouldn't want to look back on the project. Let's hope he does look back on his work with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, however, and maybe decides to get the band back together.