Edgar Wright Talks About Reconnecting With Friend Kevin Feige Six Years After Walking Off ANT-MAN
Director Edgar Wright, best known for his dark comedies and dramas like Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Baby Driver, and his upcoming Last Night in Soho, was tasked with writing the latest cover feature for Empire titled Greatest Cinema Moment Ever. The director said he asked fans what they considered to be the greatest moment in cinema, and he was overwhelmed with the moments listed in Marvel movies.
Wright has never directed a Marvel movie, but he was close to doing so in 2014, when MCU president and friend of Wright, Kevin Feige gave him the job of directing Ant-Man, starring Paul Rudd. Wright ended up walking away from the film, and though he said that the parting of ways was amicable, Wright and Feige had not spoken since then. But with Wright speaking about major movie moments, he felt he should reach out to the man at the head of the studio in charge of so many of them.
In the Empire podcast, Wright said:
“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.”
He went on to say:
“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. I told him that I read what he’d said about Aliens to James Cameron, which he said was just wild. So it was nice, it’s a nice happy ending to that story.”
That’s cool that the two men were able to bury the hatchet and pick back up as friends and movie fans. I am a huge fan of Wright, so I am sure he would have turned out a great Ant-Man movie, but I am pretty happy with how the movie turned out after Peyton Reed took over.