Joss Whedon is kinda the man lately. His career was already on a serious upward swing after Buffy, Firefly, and Serenity, but when he was brought on board to handle Marvel’s baby, The Avengers, his worth as a director shot skyward, and he gained what was likely a whole entire new group of fans (justifiably so).
So, when Whedon was asked about Edgar Wright’s original Ant-Man script, we can likely take his words at face value, out of respect for his own contribution to the Marvel universe:
I thought the script was not only the best script that Marvel had ever had, but the most Marvel script I’d read. I had no interest in Ant-Man. [Then] I read the script, and was like, ‘Of course! This is so good!’ It reminded me of the books, when I read them. Irreverent and funny and could make what was small large, and vice versa. I don’t know where things went wrong. But I was very sad. Because I thought, ‘This is a no-brainer. This is Marvel getting it exactly right.’ Whatever dissonance that came, whatever it was, I don’t understand why it was bigger than a marriage that seemed so right. But I’m not going to say it was definitely all Marvel, or Edgar’s gone mad! I felt like they would complement each other by the ways that they were different. And, uh, somethin’ happened.
It seems that Joss felt that the Shaun of the Dead director would have been the perfect fit for Ant-Man. I’m inclined to believe him if he felt strongly enough about it to make the above statement. Hopefully the final product, under the leadership of Peyton Reed, Paul Rudd, and comedy writer Adam McKay turns out as good as Whedon thought it could have been.
Thanks to CInema Blend for this story.
