10 Behind-The-Scenes Dramas That Failed To Derail Famous Movies
1. Edgar Wright Spends A Decade On Ant-Man Before Another Director Gets To Make It
The story of how Ant-Man finally came to be might just be one of the most complicated, extensive tales in filmmaking history.
An Ant-Man adaptation has been circulating since the 1980s, with comic-book legend Stan Lee beginning the push to bring his kooky creation to the big-screen, but Ant-Man truly gained traction when Edgar Wright became involved with the project in the early 2000s.
Back then, Wright, along with writer Joe Cornish, crafted a treatment for the Ant-Man movie and brought it to Artisan Entertainment (who, at the time, had a movie production partnership with Marvel), but were turned down after Artisan requested something more family-friendly.
Wright and Cornish would later mention their interest in Ant-Man to the Kevin Feige, and an Ant-Man movie was officially announced in 2006 - nine years before it actually came out.
And then, for the next few years, we heard basically nothing. While promoting Hot Fuzz and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, Wright would mention that he's still tinkering with the script and that Ant-Man is still on the cards, but there were no major updates until 2012 when Wright confirmed he was still directing the movie (he even screened some test footage).
And then... it all started to go wrong.
In 2013, Feige stated that the script was being rewritten in order to bring it more in line with the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, our first clue hinting at the creative differences that would later force Wright to leave the project.
Ant-Man was hit with issue after issue. Patrick Wilson joined the cast, but left shortly after. The film wanted to shoot in the UK but was unable to do so, so had to relocate to the U.S. And then, after several spats with Feige over the film's direction, Wright was removed from the project in May 2014.
Peyton Reed later came onboard and delivered a very good movie, but the shadow of Edgar Wright will forever haunt Ant-Man; what could have been may have been even greater than what we actually got.
Any other nearly-disastrous behind-the-scenes stories that we missed? Let us know in the comments below!