Peyton Reed became one of the more successful comic book film directors almost by accident. If you think of all the major risks that Marvel Studios has made over the last decade, “Ant-Man” is easily at the top of the list. If Iron Man was a B-list character before his debut on the big screen in 2008, then Ant-Man was easily D-list. And on top of that, the film was the first troubled production in the MCU, with filmmaker Edgar Wright leaving the project right before production. Needless to say, the cards were stacked against Reed when he took over the project.
Even still, the first “Ant-Man” grossed $520 million worldwide and made Paul Rudd’s miniature superhero an A-list Avenger. Now, Peyton Reed is coming back with “Ant-Man and the Wasp,” which by all accounts should do even better than the first. But even with all this superhero movie success, the director still has a soft spot for a film he hasn’t been able to produce – “Fantastic Four.”
In an interview with Cinema Blend, the director was asked about a script he had written for an aborted “Fantastic Four” film, and whether or not, the desire is still there for Reed to take a stab at Marvel’s First Family.
“Well, I have been known to mention ‘Fantastic Four’ in conversations that may or may not have happened in the Marvel hallways. It’s all a giant question mark at this point because no one knows if this merger is going to happen. It was on, it was off, it was on… who knows. I guess I can dream, right? I can have the dream. We’ll see. Time will tell!” says the director.
As mentioned, Reed was attached to a very early version of “Fantastic Four” almost two decades ago, which saw the Marvel team become superheroes set in the ‘60s. However, as we know, the film was eventually replaced with the Tim Story-directed ‘FF’ films of the early 2000s and then the god-awful Josh Trank 2015 reboot. But with the Fox/Disney deal in the works, maybe Reed would get a shot to do it his way once and for all.
Until then, fans of superheroes and Peyton Reed will have to make due with “Ant-Man and the Wasp,” which hits theaters July 6.