Pym Particle Fallout: Joss Whedon and James Gunn Comment on Edgar Wright’s Departure From Ant-Man

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It is Saturday of the American Memorial Day long weekend. This means that, in general, there is fuck-all going on in the way of genre news other than redundant tales of heavy drinking by comic creators (and comic bloggers), and Edgar Wright’s departure from Marvel Studios’ Ant-Man movie.

There’s a dearth of actual hard news about what actually happened to lead to the split. Latino Review has a story based on a bunch of anonymous sources saying it had to do with the script, but with no names attached, I’m just gonna link to it and let you draw your own conclusions.

Wright himself hasn’t said anything, and his Twitter feed has been silent… except for a re-Tweet of a wordless picture post Avengers and Avengers 2: Age of Ultron director Joss Whedon threw up earlier today, and which you can check out after the jump.

If you don’t get the reference, Wright directed the Cornetto Trilogy. If you don’t know what that is, you need to close this Web page immediately and find Shawn of The Dead, Hot Fuzz and The World’s End, QUICKLY, while we’re still willing to know you.

Whedon can get away with a naked show of solidarity with Wright, because I’m guessing he’s as close to bulletproof as any creative type is at Marvel Studios. I can’t imagine Kevin Feige is looking forward to facing the San Diego Comic-Con Hall H crowd with whoever he brings in to replace Wright; if he tried to replace Whedon, Feige would be chased to his armored limo by an army of Browncoats, and would be lucky to make the airport without being smacked about the head and neck with dozens of PVC replicas of Sting and Needle. Whedon could tweet Feige’s face onto goatse and probably still negotiate a raise for directing Avengers 3. But that’s not the point.

While Whedon seems to have fallen solidly on Wright’s side of whatever happened, Guardians of The Galaxy director James Gunn, who is in no way in as secure a position as Whedon, took a more neutral and reasonable position on his Facebook page:

Sometimes you have friends in a relationship. You love each of them dearly as individuals and think they’re amazing people. When they talk to you about their troubles, you do everything you can to support them, to keep them together, because if you love them both so much doesn’t it make sense they should love each other? But little by little you realize, at heart, they aren’t meant to be together – not because there’s anything wrong with either of them, but they just don’t have personalities that mesh in a comfortable way. They don’t make each other happy. Although it’s sad to see them split, when they do, you’re surprisingly relieved, and excited to see where their lives take them next.

It’s easy to try to make one party “right” and another party “wrong” when a breakup happens, but it often isn’t that simple. Or perhaps it’s even more simple than that – not everyone belongs in a relationship together. It doesn’t mean they’re not wonderful people.

And that’s true of both Edgar Wright and Marvel. One of them isn’t a person, but I think you get what I mean.

Look, I don’t know what happened between Marvel Studios and Wright. I imagine we’ll get more information in the coming days, or by angry questioners at San Diego Comic-Con. But on a personal note, I know this: I don’t give a fuck about Ant-Man as a character. I gave a fuck about Ant-Man as a movie because Edgar Wright was directing it. I now give a fuck about whatever Wright will be directing next… and Marvel had better have a damn good trick up their sleeve to make me give a fuck about Ant-Man again. Because right now I don’t… and that’s not a great starting position for Marvel’s Phase Three.