In May of 2014, Marvel announced that
Edgar Wright ("Hot Fuzz") had left
Ant-Man, a project he and his partner Joe Cornish had been working on for a decade. The disagreement was about the script, which Paul Rudd and Adam McKay rewrote. Rudd, previously pulled double duty as both actor and screenwriter when he co-wrote the 2008 comedy
Role Models. It's not new ground for him, but doing it under these different circumstances offered a new challenge.
“
It somewhat happened organically,” Rudd told Entertainment Weekly. “
When Edgar left, they were talking about directors and I knew Adam and Adam’s brilliant. So he came in to meet with them. He and I had some ideas and so we spent some time rewriting it and wound up doing a rewrite on the whole thing. All of a sudden, this took on a whole new life and was much more intensive that I had maybe anticipated.
I’ve actually found myself in these kinds of situations before—maybe not quite on this level, but not far off—where all of a sudden you’re writing scenes and taking on writing responsibilities. And that’s okay. But it’s a little strange writing something that’s really, truly out of my comfort zone. I wouldn’t know how to begin to write [something like this], but sometimes you just hit the ground running, I guess.
Thankfully Adam was there.”
“
It’s their story," Rudd acknowledged Edgar and Cornish's previous contributions to the script. "
We changed some scenes, we added new sequences, we changed some characters, we added new characters. If you took the two scripts and held them up together they’d be very different—but the idea is all theirs.”
ANT-MAN - The next evolution of the Marvel Cinematic Universe brings a founding member of The Avengers to the big screen for the first time with Marvel Studios’ “Ant-Man.” Armed with the astonishing ability to shrink in scale but increase in strength, master thief Scott Lang must embrace his inner-hero and help his mentor, Dr. Hank Pym, protect the secret behind his spectacular Ant-Man suit from a new generation of towering threats. Against seemingly insurmountable obstacles, Pym and Lang must plan and pull off a heist that will save the world.
Marvel's "Ant-Man" hits theaters July 17, 2015. It is being directed by Peyton Reed from a script written by Adam McKay and Paul Rudd. The story is by Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish. The cast: Evangeline Lilly will play Hope Pym, the daughter of Hank Pym, while Corey Stoll will play Darren Cross, a.k.a. Yellowjacket, the antagonist of the film. The two join stars Paul Rudd (Scott Lang) and Michael Douglas (Hank Pym).