If the Edgar Wright and Marvel split over “Ant-Man” is actually less amicable than originally suggested, maybe it is more akin to a “divorce” as fans have been putting it? After all, Wright developed the project for Marvel for eight years only to walk away late last week allegedly after a script rewrite that Wright agreed to, but didn’t love.
Director Joss Whedon has already weighed in, posting an image of himself on Twitter holding a Cornetto wrapper in the air in a gesture of symbolic solidarity. Whedon may be the creative guiding force for Marvel, but it’s likely if the higher ups don’t agree there’s little he can do. Meanwhile, others from the Marvel Universe have weighed in, most specifically James Gunn, the upcoming director of “Guardians of the Galaxy.” And if you really want to reinforce the marriage, divorce, relationship narrative, Gunn certainly does in his statement from Facebook.
Sometimes you have friends in a relationship. You love each of them dearly as individuals and think they’re amazing people. When they talk to you about their troubles, you do everything you can to support them, to keep them together, because if you love them both so much doesn’t it make sense they should love each other? But little by little you realize, at heart, they aren’t meant to be together – not because there’s anything wrong with either of them, but they just don’t have personalities that mesh in a comfortable way. They don’t make each other happy. Although it’s sad to see them split, when they do, you’re surprisingly relieved, and excited to see where their lives take them next.
It’s easy to try to make one party “right” and another party “wrong” when a breakup happens, but it often isn’t that simple. Or perhaps it’s even more simple than that – not everyone belongs in a relationship together. It doesn’t mean they’re not wonderful people.
And that’s true of both Edgar Wright and Marvel. One of them isn’t a person, but I think you get what I mean.
So in short, it’s more complicated than he said, she said? While it’s easy to make Marvel the bad guy, is it more akin to two lovers who couldn’t make their relationship work? We’ll see, and you can bet the trades will be weighing in after Memorial Day Weekend is over with their own sources. Meanwhile, fans are in a bit of an uproar over it all, but does the studio actually care? Forbes has written a piece called,“Hollywood Doesn’t Care About “Fanboy” Approval” and it’s worth checking out, as there’s some hard truths to that posit.
Incidentally, here’s an alternative international trailer for “Guardians of the Galaxy” which comes out in August of this year. It’s Marvel’s 2014 “risk,” and “Ant-Man” should have been the company’s 2015 gamble. But perhaps with a smack-dab July summer 2015 release date—one once inhabited by “Batman Vs. Superman”—perhaps a lot more is riding on it than you once thought.
Update: Edgar Wright himself weighed in quickly over the weekend, but deleted his response. He posted of a sad-looking Buster Keaton and as Bleeding Cool, the outlet that snagged the image notes. “[Keaton] went from being an independent to getting in bed with MGM and he regretted it. Famously, he called that one decision the worst choice he ever made as a filmmaker.”
