The Non-News News: 'Ant-Man' Exactly Where It Was/Is Before Stan Lee's Tweet

A tiny bit of managing expectations here… yes, we get excited about some of these films too.

The folks at Slashfilm pointed us all to a story detailing Stan Lee‘s recent enthusiastic tweets regarding a seemingly new development on “Ant-Man” and future Marvel movies. The Marvel magnate’s tweets — dated February 9th — read, “to make up for my previous grievous error, here’s a little item that may have escaped you. Marvel is prepping a movie starring – Ant Man!” Which was then followed with, “I had lunch with the cool, young director Edgar Wright (“Shaun of the Dead“) and, as you’d imagine, we had fun discussing the tiny hero.” These notes have led some (and us) to believe the long in development “Ant-Man” film is finally taking shape.

However, “Ant-Man” is still exactly where it was yesterday, last week, 45 minutes before Stan Lee tweeted — in development. And a source very close to this projects confirms to us that the lunch Mr. Lee is discussing actually took place back in 2008. Was there some strange delayed reaction on Lee’s part? Who knows, the man is very old, give him a break.

In truth, Wright is still deep in post-production on “Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World” and while the early footage of that film is absolutely turning heads, Wright is still developing “Ant-Man” and still has commitments to “The World’s End” and the Working Title film, “Baby Driver.” Nothing has changed. Essentially what we’re saying is, there’s no news to project any project forward here. Wright can’t start work on any of these until ‘Pilgrim’ is done.

The fact that Mr. Lee’s reporting old news probably tempers any further excitement regarding Lee’s later tweet, “Ant Man is just one of the many wild treats Marvel has planned for you, such as Iron Fist, Dr. Strange, Black Panther and more, more, more!” It’s true Marvel has eyes for future projects after the 2012 launch of the “Avengers” franchise, but it doesn’t sound like anything concrete has happened at all. As you were.

Update: MTV’s Splashpage has talked to Edgar Wright. He echoes the above sentiment. He can’t work on “Antman” until ‘Scott Pilgrim is complete. “I can’t do two things at once, so [when ‘Scott Pilgrim’ is finished] I will return to doing another draft of that one.”

It sounds like he’ll take his time as well and craft a good story without a rush which is good to hear. “Because that character isn’t one of their biggest properties, it’s not like a tentpole deadline. It’s more like me and Kevin [Feige] [saying], ‘Let’s make a really good script.’ We’ve always agreed on that — ‘Lets make a good script that works, that’s all about a great genre film, and that isn’t necessarily relying on anything else.’ “

Sounds good, but sounds a ways off.