Marvel Studios announced today that Yes Man director Peyton Reed will direct Ant-Man, taking over from the departed Edgar Wright. The film’s script either will be or has been rewritten by Anchorman‘s Adam McKay, who was at one point in talks to direct but said he couldn’t due to other commitments.
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The studio remains committed to the July 17, 2015 release date for the film, which suggests that the rumored dramatic rewrites made to the script may have been McKay’s, who has a history with the film’s star, Paul Rudd.
Here’s the official statement from Marvel, which comes with a short synopsis of the film:
When Marvel’s “Ant-Man” hits theaters July 17, 2015, director Peyton Reed will help shepherd the hero into the Marvel Cinematic Universe with a cast led by Paul Rudd and Michael Douglas, with writer Adam McKay contributing to the film’s script.
Armed with the astonishing ability to shrink in scale but increase in strength, con-man Scott Lang (Rudd) must embrace his inner-hero and help his mentor, Dr. Hank Pym (Douglas), protect the secret behind his spectacular Ant-Man suit from a new generation of towering threats. Against seemingly insurmountable obstacles, Pym and Lang must plan and pull off a heist that will save the world.
Since Wright’s departure, the studio has been moving at warp speed to replace him. In addition to McKay and Reed, they reportedly talked to Michael Dowse, Nicholas Stoller, Rawson Marshall Thurber and Ruben Fleischer.
A number of fans and even some filmmakers have suggested that the film — which Wright and his co-writer Joe Cornish had been developing with Marvel since 2006 — should have been abandoned for the time being to distance the production from the baggage with Wright. More mainstream is the concern that the film will not be able to hit its deadline, which is just over a year away, since the new filmmakers will be starting, comparably speaking, from scratch.
