8 Movies Where The Worst Version Got Made

7. Ant-Man

Ant Man Sugar Cube
Marvel Studios

If any film is more emblematic of the manufactured nature of the Marvel Cinematic Universe project, then it has to be Ant-Man. (Although, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, which shackled the inventive brilliance of Sam Raimi, could give it a run for its money.)

Originally envisioned as a fun heist caper helmed by the Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy's Edgar Wright all the way back in 2003, Ant-Man unfortunately found itself sucked up into the Marvel Studios apparatus, and thus had to conform to the rigid confines of the MCU.

Wright and screenwriting partner Joe Cornish went through several drafts over the course of Ant-Man's long gestating production, and were attached to the project as late as 2014 when the casting process was in full-swing. However, a few months later, Wright and Marvel ended up parting companies over creative differences, with the former stating in an interview with EW that he "[didn't] think [Marvel] wanted to make an Edgar Wright movie."

Some of the DNA of Wright and Cornish' script remains in the finished version of Ant-Man helmed by Peyton Reed, and while that version is entertaining, the prospect of seeing Wright's full vision away from the architecture of the MCU is way more appealing.

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Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.