Joss Whedon talks Edgar Wright’s Ant-Man, serialized storytelling & more

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

After checking out the latest ANT-MAN trailer, I was all set to embrace the Peyton Reed film (co-written by star Paul Rudd and Adam McKay), but now here comes Joss Whedon, calling the Edgar Wright penned script "the best script that Marvel had ever had." The AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON director shared a few other interesting things while speaking with Buzzfeed, including his issue with serialized storytelling on the big screen.

Joss Whedon on Edgar Wright's ANT-MAN script:

I thought the script was not only the best script that Marvel had ever had, but the most Marvel script I’d read. I had no interest in Ant-Man. [Then] I read the script, and was like, Of course! This is so good! It reminded me of the books when I read them. Irreverent and funny and could make what was small large, and vice versa. I don’t know where things went wrong. But I was very sad. Because I thought, This is a no-brainer. This is Marvel getting it exactly right. Whatever dissonance that came, whatever it was, I don’t understand why it was bigger than a marriage that seemed so right. But I’m not going to say it was definitely all Marvel, or Edgar’s gone mad! I felt like they would complement each other by the ways that they were different. And, uh, somethin’ happened.

I was only joking about being less excited for ANT-MAN now, and I really do think Wright leaving the project was best for both parties. Still, I do hope to one day at least be able to read Wright's script.

On financial expectations for AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON:

The dollars, what’s riding on this, the burden of having done the first one and trying to come up to that level started to freak me out in the way it never has…I feel like I have to make a movie good enough to be the next third-highest-grossing movie of all time. I do feel like if it doesn’t make a certain ridiculous amount of money, I will have failed the people who have faith in me. I’ll fold in on myself.

On the problem with Marvel's connected movie universe:

No matter how much they may talk about, ‘Well, this is going to lead to some terrible stuff down the line,’ in my movie, it’s designed to be a complete experience. And if I don’t do that, if I haven’t brought you on that journey and closed it out, fuck me. That’s the danger of this sort of serialized storytelling, turning the motion picture experience into episodic TV. Because we have episodic TV, and now you don’t even have to wait to watch it, you can binge it. So that’s to me a dreadful mistake.

Sounds to me like Joss Whedon is a little burned out from his time with Marvel, however he still calls it "the best experience I’ll ever have with a studio." What are your thoughts on Whedon's ANT-MAN and Marvel comments?

AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON hits theaters May 1, 2015, and ANT-MAN opens on July 17, 2015.