In a terse statement yesterday, Marvel Studios and Shaun of the Dead director Edgar Wright officially parted ways on Ant-Man, the film they’ve been developing together on and off for nearly a decade — and immediately rumors started to fly.The director and the studio had different creative visions for the film, according to the official account, but there was no clear definition of just what that meant. Rather, the Internet started to decide whose fault it was.Rumors started to swirl and Latino Review‘s El Mayimbe, the king of the Internet Marvel Studios rumor, swooped in last night with what sounds on the face of it like a fairly convincing account.Here’s the meat of his version:
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About 3 months ago, Marvel had notes [on the script]. The meat of the notes were about the core morality of the piece, must include franchise characters. etc., These notes came from the big four at Marvel. Joe Cornish and Edgar Wright did two drafts to try and answer the notes without compromising their vision.
6 weeks ago Marvel took the script off them and gave the writing assignment to two very low credit writers. One of the writers were from Marvel’s in house writing team. Edgar stayed cool, agreed to stay on the project, and read the draft.The script came in this week and was completely undone. Poorer, homogenized, and not Edgar’s vision….Edgar & Joe were upset by the sudden, out of nowhere lack of faith in them as filmmakers. Feige had always batted for them but this felt like it came from the higher ups.
Again, this isn’t gospel and Latino Review have never batted a thousand on this stuff…but it would match up with what little has been officially released as well as rumors that swirled around Patty Jenkins’s exit from Thor: The Dark World negotiations shortly before production started (while not officially signed at the time, Jenkins was regarded as a lock for the movie). That conflict reportedly so frustrated star Natalie Portman that she asserted herself in the studio’s process of finding a replacement.
Ultimately, of course, Thor: The Dark World was directed by Game of Thrones standout Alan Taylor, who also didn’t seem particularly at home with Marvel Studios, seemingly blasting the James Gunn-directed post-credits stinger teasing Guardians of the Galaxy. While Thor 3 has been confirmed, Taylor has not yet been asked back to direct.
