Edgar Wright and Kevin Feige Are Friends Again After Not Speaking Since Wright Left ‘Ant-Man’

Before the Marvel Cinematic Universe had even taken shape, Edgar Wright was hired to direct an Ant-Man movie. Wright and co-writer Joe Cornish had written a treatment for the film back in 2003, and were hired by Marvel in 2006. From there, Wright spent the next few years developing the project. He even shot test footage that screened at the 2012 San Diego Comic-Con. But by 2014, Wright walked away due to creative differences and Marvel brought in Peyton Reed to direct. According to Wright, he hadn’t spoken with Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige since walking away from Ant-Man. But now, Wright has revealed he and Feige have buried the hatchet.

The Ant-Man movie that hit theaters in 2015 is fine, I guess! It’s not particularly memorable, but Paul Rudd is charming enough, but the film had a lot stacked against it. Namely: it’s hard to watch Ant-Man and not imagine how much better the movie would’ve been if Edgar Wright had been able to execute his vision. Wright spent years developing the flick and was even responsible for most of the casting decisions. But the filmmaker’s ideas for the movie reportedly clashed with what Kevin Feige and company saw as the still-evolving Marvel Cinematic Universe. Things became irreconcilable, and rather than compromise on his vision, Wright walked away.

Ever since then, the MCU has seemed like a sore-spot for Wright, and by his own admission, he hadn’t spoken with Feige since 2014. But when it came time for Wright to work on a new issue of Empire Magazine devoted to the Greatest Cinema Moments of All Time, Wright decided he’d be silly to not include a single mention of Marvel. During an appearance on an episode of the Empire Podcast (via Collider), Wright revealed that he finally decided to reach out to Feige for the issue, saying:

“I’ll be honest, I had not spoken to Kevin since I walked off Ant-Man in 2014. You know, there wasn’t any real animosity or outright hostility between us, it was all very diplomatic at the time, but in that situation you go your separate ways and there was no reason to get back in touch. So I just had never spoken to him or vice versa. Aside from the movie itself, we had been friends, so it was a sad thing – aside from the professional aspect of it, we had been good pals.”

And, according to Wright, the reconciliation went well, and resulted in Feige contributing to the Empire issue:

“I thought it would be disingenuous of me to get through this article without mentioning the ‘M’ word once. So I did what I hadn’t done in six years – I just emailed Kevin. It was a really nice thing, and Kevin was really touched that I’d reached out to him directly and just said, ‘Hey.’ Also it was funny after six years of no contact to email him just saying, ‘Kevin, I need you to write something for me, and I need it tomorrow!’ So it was nice, we basically reconnected over this article and it was very sweet…I’m very glad I did it, and I was very happy that his response was so — he was really touched that I had reached out, and I feel what he wrote was great.”

Of course, I’m sure everyone is going to start wondering if this means Wright will come back and make a movie for the MCU. There’s no indication of that at the moment, though. For now, we’ll just have to wait for Wright’s next movie, Last Night in Soho, which is set to arrive on October 22.

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