Who Really Wants An “Ant-Man” Movie?
…these movies are all so intertwined from a business/perception perspective that Marvel can no longer afford to roll the dice on a hip, genre-subverting superhero film that might not do Winter Soldier numbers on its opening weekend. Letting Wright walk away makes Marvel look bad to film-geek Twitter, but if the box-office headline after Ant-Man opened were anything but ANT-MAN SQUASHES COMPETITION, it would call into question the viability of the whole Movieverse.
via Marvel Grits Teeth, Rolls Forward With Ant-Man Movie Literally Nobody Wants «.
More than an Ant-Man movie, a lot of people wanted to see A Marvel Movie Directed By Edgar Wright. That it was Ant-Man only made it seem more potentially fun – an off to the edge character that he could have some fun with.
But slowly, the fans of Ant-Man came along, and started talking about how GREAT a character he is, and how poorly he’d been used in the comics (with the eternal return to The Bitch-Slap Heard ‘Round The World) and the fear that the movie might be too irreverent to the character.
And it appears those are the people Marvel listened to for a moment.
Meanwhile, the Wright fans were disappointed that Simon Pegg wasn’t going to play Ant-Man, no matter how little sense that would have made at all.
Peyton Reed is certainly more associated with comedy – I adore “Down With Love”, his love letter to the 50s – 60s bedroom comedy, and he even directed a bunch of episodes of The “Weird Al” Show. So they still seem dedicated to doing a more lighthearted film, and that seems a good move.
But so help me, if Guardians of the Galaxy doesn’t perform to expectations, this film will be RADICALLY re-imaged, and possibly killed entirely.