Kevin Feige on Why Director Peyton Reed Is Right for ANT-MAN
A lot of fans were disappointed when the amazingly talented Edgar Wright was replaced by Peyton Reed as the director of Ant-Man. During a Q&A for Marvel's upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy, IGN asked Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige why he decided on hiring the Bring it On director to helm the movie. This was his response:
"Peyton is someone that I've been a fan of for a long time. People may not remember, though probably your readers remember, that he was attached to Fantastic Four more than 10 years ago. We spent a lot of time together… and I got along with Peyton very, very well and he had awesome ideas and an awesome vision for the movie, and for various reasons he ended up leaving that movie...'Peyton was always on our lists, and so when this happened and Edgar [Wright] said 'Not for me' we met with a handful of people, but Peyton was always one that I thought would be great.
"It was not a slam-dunk that he would just step into it and do it. He wanted to be sure that he was wasn't just inheriting something or following someone else's lead. Or wasn't inheriting something that the evil studio had watered down to be something bad. I kept saying, 'You can either read what's online, or come in and talk to us and look at all this stuff.' He looked at everything, he talked with us, and he said 'Number one, I agree with the direction you’re going in. And number two, I can add to it.' And he has – the movie is in as good a shape as it's ever been right now."
That's hard to argue with. The fact of the matter is Feige knows what he wants out of this movie, and he has taken the steps necessary to bring that vision to life. Peyton might not be the strongest, most talented director, but I'm sure that Marvel is still going to deliver a great movie. We'll find out more at San Diego Comic-Con next week.
Paul Rudd, Michael Douglas, Evangeline Lilly, David Dastmalchian, Patrick Wilson, and Corey Stoll star in the movie, and it's scheduled for release on July 17th, 2015.