The name Peyton Reed didn’t exactly get the masses excited when it was announced that he was replacing Edgar Wright as director of ANT-MAN. The slew of writers that have come on board since haven’t inspired confidence either, especially for a flick that’s set to come out one year from now. Marvel is sticking by their guns, however, and uber-producer Kevin Fiege had a few things to say regarding Peyton Reed as director when asked at a Q&A in London.
In Kevin Fiege’s own words:
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.
He’s come in to meet on a lot of our movies over the years, in particular Guardians. He had a lot of awesome things to say on Guardians. But James [Gunn] had a slightly more solid take that was of interest to us. But 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.
Regarding Peyton Reed accepting the role of director:
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.
On whether or not the material has changed since Wright:
It’s still very much in the spirit of what Edgar’s original pitch was and the entire template of the movie is what Edgar set out and originally came and pitched us maybe eight years ago now. But it’s on its way to being the absolute best version of what that movie could have been.
How Reed will measure up with other Marvel directors:
Peyton is really, really wonderful, and will be proving that soon enough. As I said to the Comic-Con audience a few years ago, ‘You might not have heard of Joe and Antony Russo (CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER), but you’re going to be big fans of them soon.’ And I’d say the same thing about Peyton Reed now.
The fact remains that while we’ll never get an Edgar Wright ANT-MAN, the director of BRING IT ON may deliver something good. It’s just too early to judge. I also respect the fact that Kevin Fiege acknowledges what people think, given his “evil studio” comment. The man is no stranger to negative feedback and certainly knows that there’s more pressure on Marvel to produce a great ANT-MAN flick now than there ever was before. Here’s hoping that Reed and Co. can deliver.
Peyton Reed‘s ANT-MAN will be released on July 17, 2015.