In May 2014, it was announced that Edgar Wright, best known for movies like Shaun of the Dead and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, would no longer be directing Marvel’s Ant-Man movie. The news was shocking because Wright was not just a director-for-hire like some Marvel filmmakers have been. Wright first began crafting his Ant-Man film with co-writer Joe Cornish in the early 2000s, before the Marvel Cinematic Universe was even a thing. When the MCU began to develop, Wright’s Ant-Man was one of the earliest confirmed projects. Wright was even a part of the MCU’s first panel back in 2006.
As Wright has explained in interviews, he was excited to be on the ground floor of something, setting the tone for what the MCU would become. He wanted to do a superhero movie where it was still emblematic of the director, in keeping with their body of work. The comparison he’d made was Tim Burton’s Batman, which is still very much a Tim Burton movie. After leaving Ant-Man, Wright even told Variety, “I wanted to make a Marvel movie but I don’t think they really wanted to make an Edgar Wright movie.”
Part of the problem was timing. Ant-Man was originally a Phase One MCU movie, with only loose connective tissue to the other films. But Wright asked that Ant-Man be pushed back so that he could direct The World’s End first. This was because his producing partner, Eric Fellner, had been diagnosed with cancer and he wanted to finish their “Cornetto Trilogy” while Fellner still could.
Marvel agreed and Ant-Man moved to Phase Two, after the blockbuster success of Avengers and when Marvel’s “house style” had already been established. As Wright and Cornish were updating their drafts of the film and casting the major parts, Marvel kept pushing for more connections with the MCU. Eventually, Marvel had one of its in-house screenwriters do a draft without Wright’s involvement. This eventually resulted in Wright’s departure, and director Peyton Reed took his place. Paul Rudd, who was already cast as Scott Lang, then did a rewrite with Adam McKay, which became the film we now know.
To be clear, a good amount of Wright and Cornish’s script survived and served as the film’s overall backbone. According to Reed, “The idea to make Ant-Man a heist movie structure was all Edgar and Joe. The idea of Hank Pym and Scott Lang as mentor and pupil, again, that was all theirs, and also, the idea of a movie that that all drives toward a third act where the big battle between the good guy and the bad guy takes place in a little girl’s bedroom, that was always there from the beginning, and I stand by the fact that I think that’s genius.”
Still, there were a lot of changes, and while we’ve never seen the original script (and Wright has said he has to be careful about revealing too much because of the NDA he signed) there’s enough out there to give us a pretty good idea of the differences. Here are the nine biggest changes from Edgar Wright’s Ant-Man to the one we got.
1
Scott Lang had a bigger crew
In the version of Ant-Man that we got, Scott Lang’s crew for pulling off heists was just three guys, but according to the film’s editor Colby Parker Jr., “I think there were, like, 15 people within the gang.”
2
Michael Peña had a smaller part
Michael Peña’s character Luis did exist in Wright’s version, but in a much smaller capacity, most likely because Scott Lang’s crew would have been so much bigger. But as the movie took a new direction under Reed, his part grew and once they got into reshoots, his character grew even more. Even that famous summary montage Luis did was a late addition.
3
No Falcon fight
This one probably isn’t a big surprise, as Falcon’s fight with Ant-Man definitely feels shoehorned into the movie. Wright’s version had far less crossover with the existing MCU. As Parker Jr. told The Direct, “I don’t think there would have been any other Marvel characters set up. I think he was going to be a standalone. He didn’t want any other Marvel characters in the film.” Parker Jr. even specifically pointed to the scene, saying, “I don’t think the Falcon would have been in Ant-Man.
4
More Hank Pym action
According to the book MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios, Edgar Wright’s Ant-Man would have begun with a flashback to Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) as the original Ant-Man, then it would have jumped to the present day with Scott Lang stealing the suit.
5
No Peggy Carter or Howard Stark
With Wright opening on Pym as Ant-Man, the movie would not have featured the scene with Hank Pym fighting with Peggy Carter and Howard Stark about trying to replicate his Pym Particles.
6
No Janet Van Dyne
As Peyton Reed told Vulture, “In the original drafts I think there was one reference in dialogue to Janet. She didn’t appear in the movie.” While Janet Van Dyne — who would eventually come to be played by Michelle Pfeiffer in Ant-Man and the Wasp — only appears briefly in Ant-Man, her absence informs much of Hank Pym’s arc with his daughter Hope (Evangeline Lilly) and builds into the Quantum Realm story for the sequel. Speaking of which…
7
No Quantum Realm
“We also brought the quantum realm into the movie, which was never in the early drafts,” Reed told Vulture. “That mostly came about because Adam and I love that psychedelic part of Marvel Comics. We thought, ‘There’s gonna be a lot of shrinking in this movie. What if we got to the third act and we took it even further?’ We found a way to work that into the story with the self-sacrifice that Scott makes to save his daughter, but it also leaves Hank Pym with this realization that Scott got out of the quantum realm, something he didn’t think was possible.”
Considering how important the quantum realm is to the MCU, especially for Avengers: Endgame, it’s clear that Wright’s departure didn’t just change Ant-Man, it changed the entire MCU.
8
Scott Lang was a much more hardened criminal
In the final version of Ant-Man, Scott Lang is an ex-con in the very loosest sense, having committed some anti-corporate crime where he did some Robin Hood kind of thing, stealing corporate money and giving it to people who had been scammed by the company. But in Wright’s version, Lang started out as an “actual criminal,” Wright explained on his Instagram, with a greater redemption arc throughout the film. This undoubtedly would have changed the character, and probably would have made him a bit more interesting.
9
It would not have “fit in”
Evangeline Lilly, who came onto the film as Hope Van Dyne because of Edgar Wright, was a big supporter of his and almost left the film in solidarity. Eventually, she was convinced to stay on and, after having seen the finished film directed by Reed, she told The Hollywood Reporter that Wright’s version “wouldn’t have fit in the Marvel Universe. It would have stuck out like a sore thumb, no matter how good it was. It just would have taken you away from this cohesive universe they’re trying to create.”