Exclusive: Edgar Wright's Ant-Man & Scott Pilgrim

News

Exclusive: Edgar Wright's Ant-Man & Scott Pilgrim

July 24, 2008

Director Edgar Wright is doing a mini-tour of the United States along with Simon Pegg and Jessica Stevenson in support of their new DVD Spaced: The Complete Series, released Tuesday on DVD in the United States for the first time. ComingSoon.net had a chance to sit down and talk with him, an interview which you can read here, but they also had a chance to talk with him a bit about Marvel Studios' Ant-Man and Bryan Lee O'Malley's Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, both of which Wright is adapting as movies.

CS: What's been going on since you finished promoting "Hot Fuzz" last year? I know you've been always juggling a couple different projects including "Ant-Man" and "Scott Pilgrim."
Wright: We're in between two different strikes. I don't think anybody really knows what's happening with the (actors strike). Yeah, I've just been writing. I wrote the first draft of "Ant-Man." I wrote two drafts of "Scott Pilgrim." I started to work on a solo project and also me and Simon are… (starts to pause as not to reveal too much.)

CS: It already leaked what you two were doing together.
Wright: Oh, no, there's two. There's one that's me and there's one that's me and Simon. Yeah, that one there was a trade announcement about it and that's sort of the third in this trilogy but we need to start writing that in between everything else that's going on .

CS: The interesting thing about "Ant-Man" is that after "Iron Man" opened so big, there was this huge Marvel Studios bells and whistles announcement of their movies for the next three years and "Ant-Man" wasn't mentioned.
Wright: I think having spoken to Kevin Feige, the "Ant-Man" film I have in mind is a bit more stand-alone, and that's kind of what I wanted to do in a way. I think my take on it is something that may or may not fit into what "The Avengers" would eventually do, but they're very keen on it and they've even talked a release date with me in very vague terms. It looks likely that I will do "Scott Pilgrim" next and then "Ant-Man" straight afterwards.

CS: You have a great cast that's been announced for "Scott Pilgrim" so far.
Wright: There's some more interesting people buzzing around as well. It's going to be a big ensemble, that film, and there's a lot of fun people we've already been talking to, so there's more to come with that.

CS: Brian O'Malley still has a couple more issues of the story to finish, so have you talked to him about where the story is going to go so you can include some of that in the movie?
Wright: The only book that isn't written is the sixth, but our film takes on a slightly different trajectory after the second book and it includes elements from books three, four and five. In some cases, Brian has used lines in his books from our first draft of the screenplay (chuckles) which is like strange performance-style transference, and it's been brilliant being able to pick his brains throughout this. On one hand, it's a very very faithful adaptation and on the other hand, it definitely molds events from those books into a three-act movie structure, so that's been interesting.

CS: And you know that Mike Cera has this insane fanbase of women, which you might have seen at Comic-Con last year, but it's gotten even bigger since "Superbad" came out. Essentially, every single woman wants him.
Wright: Michael Cera? Yeah. I know he's got a lot of growing up he can do if he wanted to.

CS: Once you figure out if the strike is happening, do you know where you'll shoot the movie? Would you go back to the U.K. for it or do it here?
Wright: No, it wouldn't be in the U.K. It'll either be here or Toronto. It would be really crucial to kind of shoot in Toronto, so that's what I'm aiming to do.

CS: I want to ask some more "Ant-Man" stuff because besides the release date, there's been a lot of chatter and speculation about what that movie might be like, whether it's a straight comedy or not. Did you look at any specific issues or stories to based the movie on?
Wright: It doesn't really have elements of an entire strand or series, because Ant-Man is a character that over forty years, he's kind of cropped up in various different guises, and it's always interesting to me what elements of the character people latch onto. Everyone seems to latch onto the wife-beater elements. I'm not even sure if I read that particular story. I maybe read parts of it. You know, the only thing is that parts of it touch upon is the whole mythos, and basically, it's the story about Hank Pym and Scott Lang. Our big spin on it is an origin tale for one of them and kind of like a swan song for the other.

CS: Are you going to be able to get the Wasp in there at all?
Wright: In a very roundabout way. We want to sort of leave some things for some future visions or spin-off things as well. It's difficult to tell forty years of Avengers history in one film, and I'd rather concentrate on two or three great characters.

CS: Ant-Man also had the worst villains in the Marvel Universe.
Wright: Living Eraser…

CS: Egghead…
Wright: Like The Protractor… it always seemed like for the first 12 issues of "Ant-Man," it was just the contents of a pencil case.

CS: You could probably make up a villain and it would be better than any of the villains in the comic books.
Wright: I don't think there's any villains from the original comics, I mean Ant-Man standalone, that are like famous enough to… I mean, in a way, one of the things that was sort of a high concept of characters so much is that you don't need to have a Marvel super-villain in the film. Ant-Man is enough in an otherwise kind of real world.

CS: The good thing is that the character doesn't have that many diehard fans, at least not that I know of, although maybe they'll come out of the woodwork when you're at Comic-Con talking about the movie.
Wright: "Hey, you didn't beat his wife enough!"

CS: (laughs) No, no, he really didn't beat his wife at all when he was Ant-Man. That was like later when he had five different personalities.
Wright: I think you got the sense with the original. I had lunch with Stan Lee and it was very interesting talking to him about Ant-Man because he said to me that he always felt like Ant-Man was a character that should have been bigger, and like they made mistakes, even just in the artwork, that sort of prevented him from doing that. It's kind of interesting. He said that he always felt that Ant-Man was a character that had more potential than it ever really delivered on. I like that Cold War stuff, it's great. Ant-Man taking on the Russkies single-handedly, it's funny.

Spaced: The Complete Series is out now on DVD which you can get in all the finer stores that sell cool cult TV show DVD collections, including Amazon. If you'll be in San Diego for Comic-Con International, try to stop by Room 6A on Friday at 12:30pm where Edgar, Simon Pegg and Jessica Stevenson will be doing a Q 'n' A panel about the show. (Yes, we know it's opposite the Watchmen panel, but you probably won't be able to get into it, so why bother even trying?) Then on Friday night at 10:15, same time, they'll screen three episodes of the show as chosen by you, the fans.

80 comments

Add a comment

Related Articles From Other Sites

Comments

Posted by: FireFly's Enigma on July 24, 2008 at 00:03:51

I'm not sure a stand alone Ant-Man can hold it's own. I wasn't really into him while reading The Ultimates (or past comics) and unfortunately the main thing I remember from that is the spousal abuse. The arc brought his character to a real level. I was amazed they placed that into the series. I guess that's why it has the Parental advisory.

Posted by: marcvader on July 24, 2008 at 00:04:03

I'm having my doubts about this now..

Posted by: stryker on July 24, 2008 at 00:08:08

can't wait for ant-man

Posted by: Aeghast on July 24, 2008 at 00:15:03

Wife beater! Heh..

Posted by: John N. on July 24, 2008 at 00:15:04

Of all the characters that Marvel has in it's library to bring to the screen...they decide to do Ant-man...wow. Could someone explain to me the logic.

Posted by: theJoker on July 24, 2008 at 00:18:13

I love Edgar, I trust in all that he does!
Die hard spaced fan since '99.
I trust you Edgar, give us an odd but grat marvel movie

Posted by: theJoker on July 24, 2008 at 00:19:30

oh and for the record....Ant man sucked balls....but i still trust mr wright!
Legend!!!

Posted by: abaranger on July 24, 2008 at 00:21:38

I really like the new ant-man comic series, although I haven't read all of it, but I think the idea has a lot of potential to make a great movie, and it looks to me like this could be an awesome film!

Posted by: acslaterson on July 24, 2008 at 00:22:31

Do a Deadpool movie, do a Ms. Marvel movie(who wouldn't want to see that outfit on the big screen), do a Heroes for Hire movie, BUT DON'T DO THIS ONE! YOU ARE A NEW STUDIO THIS WILL JUST BLEED MONEY!!!!

Posted by: GnarlyHulk on July 24, 2008 at 00:38:51

Any chance in hell we could be lucky enough to have him working w/ Simon on The Boys?

:)

Posted by: TomCullen on July 24, 2008 at 01:21:11

M-O-O-N. That spells Ant Man.

Unlike Scott Pilgrim, which has a good chance of being made, I predict that Ant Man will never happen. It's going to be one of those things that they talk about and talk about, but which, when it comes time to put up or shut up, the accountants are just going to look at and go "uh...no."

And you know what. When it doesn't happen, I don't think anyone is much going to care, short of Edgar Wright, who wasted so much time on the project. But i imagine he's being paid well enough that he'll get over it.

M-O-O-N. That spells dead in the water.

Posted by: The R-dale Cowboy on July 24, 2008 at 01:45:33

I think an Ant-man movie might be good if it ties into The Avengers. If this movie exist in its own continuity it will make it even harder to sell to movie goers.

Posted by: Led Zeppelin on July 24, 2008 at 01:57:30

I'll go see an Ant Man movie. I think the public has been demanding it for some time.

All the kids in my neighborhood are always saying "Forget Iron Man and Spider-Man!
Ant-Man RULES ! ! ! !"
And I predict it'll make at least 50 thousand during it's opening weekend. (Take that Dark Knight, we have a real hero now!)

Posted by: Mark Morgan on July 24, 2008 at 03:03:54

This is one diehard Ant-Man (Really more like a Henry Pym actually) fan who's crawling out of the woodwork right now!

I'm going to keep an open mind, but it sounds like he's playing with the idea more than trying to translate it. I'm sure nobody will care otherwise, beside me, as I seem to be the only Henry Pym fanboy in existance.

So lets, see, they've talked wife beating ...

(Hey, remember when Spider-Man hit Mary Jane during that whole Clone Saga? Ever wonder why he wasn't labeled a wife beater as well?)

And villians, hmmm. Okay, I know Egghead doesn't set people on fire, but what about Whirlwind? He's psychotic, super fast, likes knives, am I the only guy on the planet who realizes that he would translate well? AM I! ... Apparently so. Oh well.

Good Luck, Hank. You're gonna need it.

Posted by: Flash on July 24, 2008 at 03:15:01

Stand alone Ant-Man movie?

Soooo..

Is Ant-Man going to be in the Avengers movie?

Posted by: batfan on July 24, 2008 at 03:15:16

Ant Man ... the name itself makes you laugh ...

But from what I know about the charakter, it could be a nice side charakter in The Avengers, but I have doubts about an own movie. Sure you can work on a lot of great charakter things with him, but the whole concept of an Ant Man ... come on!
And like they say in this article, he doesn't even have mediocre villians.

Posted by: Abe on July 24, 2008 at 03:16:08

CS: And you know that Mike Cera has this insane fanbase of women, which you might have seen at Comic-Con last year, but it's gotten even bigger since "Superbad" came out. Essentially, every single woman wants him.

Wright: Michael Cera? Yeah. I know he's got a lot of growing up he can do if he wanted to.

Ouch!

Posted by: Flash on July 24, 2008 at 03:18:41

I smell POOP...

Posted by: Flash on July 24, 2008 at 03:25:48

I dont think there should be an Ant-Man movie.

Just introduce him in the Avengers movie. Then take the money you would have wasted and put the money towards fixing D.D or F.F.

Posted by: Tye on July 24, 2008 at 03:35:36

I'm not really looking forward to this at all. I want Black Panther to get him a film hes has the strength of Captain America and the brains of Iron Man Hes also beat both Cap and the Fantastic Four and has married one of the most powerful woman in marvel Storm in his later comics so he has the potential of a good superhero action film.

Posted by: clem So on July 24, 2008 at 03:42:14

Ant man sucks bring on Giant man!

Posted by: DarkAvenger on July 24, 2008 at 03:56:02

people poeple settle down marvel is fully aware that this one wont be a blockbuster but they r doing it to progress the avengers movie. this ant man movie will be ok if they get simon pegg and this will movie will only have a 40-50 million budget anyways and one more thing they cant do a deadpool movie cuz fox has the rights geez ur people. Ant man is going to be mad so they can introduce ultron and probaly vison so they dont have 2 waste alot of time explaining ultron in the avengers movie cuz he will proably be the main bad guy in it.

Posted by: DarkAvenger on July 24, 2008 at 03:56:44

people poeple settle down marvel is fully aware that this one wont be a blockbuster but they r doing it to progress the avengers movie. this ant man movie will be ok if they get simon pegg and this will movie will only have a 40-50 million budget anyways and one more thing they cant do a deadpool movie cuz fox has the rights geez ur people. Ant man is going to be mad so they can introduce ultron and probaly vison so they dont have 2 waste alot of time explaining ultron in the avengers movie cuz he will proably be the main bad guy in it.

Posted by: StingMcQueef on July 24, 2008 at 03:56:50

I hope they don't use the Cold War setting, as Edgar Wright seemes to refer to in the interview. An Ant-Man movie is enough of a stretch, don't need to go period either.

Posted by: MastahP on July 24, 2008 at 04:51:18

"it could be a nice side charakter in The Avengers"??? Side character??? He was an original Avenger!! If anything they should release an Ant Man movie which features Wasp to set up for the Avengers!!

« Previous Page

Page 1 of 4

Total: 80 comments

Jump to page: 1 2 3 4

Add a Comment