Edgar Wright has briefly broken his silence after departing the comic book film Ant-Man, posting then swiftly deleting a photoshopped shot of Buster Keaton in an apparent rebuke to studio Marvel.
Wright, director of the Three Cornettos Trilogy Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and The World’s End quit the Disney-owned studio’s latest superhero adventure last week over “creative differences”. It is thought he was unhappy that Marvel commissioned rewrites of the screenplay he wrote for the long-gestating Ant-Man with fellow Briton Joe Cornish.
The shot of Keaton featured a Cornetto ice cream in reference to Wright’s triptych of comedies and was accompanied by the single word “selfie”. The quickly deleted picture suggests a sharp commentary on the film-maker’s experience with Marvel on a movie he has been developing since 2006.
Keaton famously said that leaving his own independent studio to work for MGM in 1928 was the “worst mistake of my career” because he lost creative control.
Wright’s deleted selfie “follows” an apparently supportive tweet from Joss Whedon, director of Marvel’s The Avengers and a key figure in the next swathe of comic book films from the studio. Over the weekend he posted a picture of himself looking downcast and holding a Cornetto ice cream.
Meanwhile, James Gunn, director of Marvel’s much-hyped Guardians of the Galaxy, wrote on Facebook that Wright’s departure was like watching two close friends break up.
He said: “Sometimes you have friends in a relationship. You love each of them dearly as individuals and think they’re amazing people. When they talk to you about their troubles, you do everything you can to support them, to keep them together, because if you love them both so much doesn’t it make sense they should love each other? But little by little you realise, at heart, they aren’t meant to be together.”
According to Marvel, Ant-Man, which is based on a comic book series about a size-shifting superhero, remains on course for a July 2015 release date. Starring Paul Rudd in the title role, its cast also features Michael Douglas, Evangeline Lily, Michael Pena and Patrick Wilson.
