Ant-Man is having a helluva time making its way to the big screen. The Marvel Studios production took another hit today with the announcement it has lost director number two.
The first confirmed director Edgar Wright (The World’s End, Shaun of the Dead) backed out of the project a week ago for reasons unknown…..let’s call it “creative differences” to sound like we really know.
Next up on the list was the Anchorman franchise’s Adam McKay. Whoops….there he goes. McKay walked away from negotiations this morning, again, reasons unknown.
Whose next on Marvel president Kevin Feige’s list of A-List helmer’s? Rumor has it three and four (not necessarily in that order) are Ruben Fleischer of Gangster Squad fame and Marshall Thurber, the guy behind last year’s sleeper hit We’re the Millers.
At the film’s current rate anyone reading this could get a knock on their door or a voicemail message from Feige begging an audience and making you an offer.
Ok, so what are Marvel doing to scare off these directors?
Clearly something is amiss.
From other articles I’ve read about it, Marvel’s insistence on maintaining continuity with the other franchise films, and somewhat with the comics.
It’s Feige’s job to make sure no one gets too “creative” and does something that would impact the other standalone and Avengers films, and more importantly the Phase 3 projects. When measuring the needs of one character in what always seemed to be a quirky movie against the potential billions expected from the upcoming movies from the other Marvel franchises, not a hard call to make.
I’ve never been as invested in Ant-Man as so many others seem to be, so maybe my lack of caring will show through here a little bit. Edgar Wright had been on that film for 8 years, and I always wondered why they stuck with it so long. But now that it’s been cast and things are getting started, Marvel is stuck with going ahead with the project, when it would probably be a better idea to make a Netflix miniseries out of it.