Update 5/31: And the story continues. Now The Wrap is reporting that McKay has dropped out of talks and Marvel is starting over and looking once again at their other two contenders. Full story here.
Update 5/31: THR confirms that McKay is in talks to direct “Ant-Man.” No word yet on when production might begin, but Marvel is still aiming to release the film on July 17, 2015.
Is this week’s “Ant-Man”/Marvel drama finally drawing to a close? It’s been such a whirlwind of emojis I don’t even know what to think anymore. Yet who to believe? Earlier today, three men emerged as the finalists to fill the director’s chair on “Ant-Man” recently vacated by filmmaker Edgar Wright after eight years of development and what sounds like a last minute losing of nerve from Marvel in favor of something more safe and familiar.
Those men’s names? Rawson Marshall Thurber, director of tepid, but successful comedy “We’re The Millers,” Ruben Fleischer, filmmaker behind the slightly less tepid, but only marginally successful “30 Minutes Or Less,” and “Anchorman” helmer Adam McKay.
While The Wrap followed up the original piece, reporting that Thurber had emerged as the frontrunner of all three, in the evening AICN said Adam McKay, the director of “Step-Brothers” and “The Other Guys” was in talks to take over the film.
All three comedy directors made sense for various reasons. And all have something to prove. McKay specifically had been dabbling with action set pieces, most memorably in “The Other Guys” and the news anchors showdown in “Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues” and he’d been hoping to direct a graphic novel adaptation of “The Boys” for some time. It’s clear that the ‘Anchorman’ filmmaker had been itching to spread his wings beyond comedy and towards something with action and “Ant-Man” would be the perfect mix of the two.
Is he Marvel’s man? For the moment, it seems so and given he’s directed “Ant-Man” himself, Paul Rudd, in two separate “Anchorman” movies, it’s obviously a logical fit. Though AICN notes that an offer has been made, but not yet accepted, so perhaps anything could still happen. If the gig is his, McKay is certainly the best option of the three and he’s certainly the one that fans will complain about the least (if not totally love and endorse). But does Adam McKay want to be the filmmaker known for directing the allegedly watered-down “Ant-Man” script that Wright rejected wholesale? We’ll find out soon enough, I’m sure.
