The timing of Edgar Wright's new movie, BABY DRIVER, being released right now and Phil Lord and Christopher Miller exiting the HAN SOLO Star Wars movie couldn't have been scripted better by Wright himself.
Reason being, as Wright's fans will never forget, and perhaps you've already forgotten, Wright was set to be the writer and director of Marvel's ANT-MAN starring Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly and Michael Douglas but he was canned right before filming was set to begin in Atlanta. Wright had already cast it and the movie was just over a month away from going into principle photography when Marvel Studios announced Wright would be leaving the movie project he had been cultivating for nearly 10 years. The reason was the ever-played-out "creative differences" excuse and reports claimed it was due to Marvel Studios wanting a script re-write done before filming began by another set of eyes that weren't Wright's eyes or his co-writer Joe Cornish.
According to Wright, who opened up about leaving ANT-MAN with Variety, this is pretty much exactly what happened with Marvel Studios.
“I think the most diplomatic answer is I wanted to make a Marvel movie but I don’t think they really wanted to make an Edgar Wright movie. It was a really heartbreaking decision to have to walk away after having worked on it for so long, because me and Joe Cornish in some form—it’s funny some people say, ‘Oh they’ve been working on it for eight years’ and that was somewhat true, but in that time I had made three movies so it wasn’t like I was working on it full time. But after The World’s End I did work on it for like a year, I was gonna make the movie. But then I was the writer-director on it and then they wanted to do a draft without me, and having written all my other movies, that’s a tough thing to move forward thinking if I do one of these movies I would like to be the writer-director. Suddenly becoming a director for hire on it, you’re sort of less emotionally invested and you start to wonder why you’re there, really.”
Many were excited to see Wright's ANT-MAN movie and while it was still a solid film and addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe — as well as financially successful enough to get a sequel, ANT-MAN AND THE WASP green lit — there will always be fans who will forever wonder how much better (or maybe worse) Wright's version of ANT-MAN might have been.
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