Wrights & Wrongs: Caught in the Middle of Marvel's Ant-Man Backlash

Winthrop

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Kenjitsuka said:
"one of fandom's favored Precious Snowflakes while Edgar wright most definitely is."
Can't say that the name rings any bells at all... is this another American thing?
Like that comedian guy from Avengers you keep gushing about?
I think he is known in the UK given that four of the five movies I've seen that he was involved in were set in England. Anyway he was involved with Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, The Worlds End, Scott Pilgrim, and Attack the Block along with a few other movies I haven't seen.

OT: I never pay attention to the director in these sorts of films. I'm hoping it will turn out alright for everyone in the end, but I don't think this will be an issue. I see a lot of people disliked Thor 2 and think this will turn out the same, but I actually liked that movie so those worries aren't really getting to me much.
 

Zontar

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Ickabod said:
Any director working on a Marvel project at this point should know ahead of time what they are signing up for. Marvel is thinking about the big picture and there are lots of moving pieces in order for that picture to work.
The main problem I have with it, is that this movie was supposed to come out before that was actually a problem.

Ant-Man was originally intended for release in 2010 (getting so far as pre-production and an official release date), between Incredible Hulk and Thor, to introduce him and maybe Wasp to audiences in much the same way the other movies introduced their own characters.

Then Iron Man got more then half a billion at the box office, so instead of a well crafted Ant-Man movie made over 4 years, we got a rushed sequel made in a year and a half, while Ant-Man got pushed back 5 years and 2 Avengers movies when he should have been there from the start.

With how everything is going, it probably would have been better, both financially and from a storytelling perspective, to release Ant-Man in 2009 instead and still make Iron Man 2 like they wanted. But hindsight is 20/20
 

RA92

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medv4380 said:
RA92 said:
He's one of the best film-makers today.
Debatable. He certainly has his own unique flare, but even being as loved by his fans his films don't appeal to the general audience. I presonally like his slap stick comedy, but they don't sell tickets. Scott Pilgram was his highest grossing film of late, and that only made 31m Domestic. His latest only made 26m. For being one of the "best" he certainly doesn't rank up there with Speilberg.

Not sure what popularity has to do with good film-making. And Joss Whedon wasn't exactly a big Hollywood money-maker before Avengers, was he?


As it stands Write may just be like Jim Carrey. Good, but only if you're in the mood for slap stick. When he starts to do stuff with more depth and breadth like the actual best directors then I might consider your pov. Until then he's just a slap stick director that's made a few cult films that have a rabid fan base.
And you would have had said the same thing about the Russo brothers before The Winter Soldier.
 

nightmare_gorilla

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in this instance i'm more inclined to give marvel the benefit of the doubt on this one. if you remember before this same sort of thing happened with the Edward Norton hulk movie. the final edit became a tug of war between marvel and Norton's production crew where marvel wanted more smash and Norton wanted more banner. it's maybe a little obtuse to say "nobody cares about bruce we just want to see hulk smash stuff" but in a way it kind of true. Banner himself has always been almost a background character for the hulk in major story arcs. Norton was rumored to be pushing for a lot more banner centric story with a lot less hulk so marvel took it from him and beefed up the hulk portions, that's why they replaced him for avengers he didn't want any part of it anymore. I think marvel played it right in that respect. I would love to see tim roth in more marvel stuff, would love to see the abomination show up again, but ultimately I think marvel was right to insist on having it their way.

as far as Edgar write goes, I like his movies, i'll still go see whatever he does next. I think his ant man would have been very interesting and probably pretty good but it's possible he tried to do too much, pull in other characters they might not have plans for but didn't want to use just yet. and he has an exceptionally distinct style to his movies and some of the characters in them, it is possible it just didn't gel with marvel's style. sometimes things that taste really good by themselves just don't taste great together. like zack Snyder and superman. two great tastes that taste shit together.
 

Comrade_Beric

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I gave up on Auteur Theory somewhere between 1999 and 2005. George Lucas's evil minion "Darth Binks" shot it in the face with a midichlorian-laced blaster bolt. If the prequels taught us literally anything at all about movie making, it's that the director simply cannot be the only voice in the production. Treating him as such opens the door to auteur-ego trainwrecks.
 

WWmelb

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Comrade_Beric said:
I gave up on Auteur Theory somewhere between 1999 and 2005. George Lucas's evil minion "Darth Binks" shot it in the face with a midichlorian-laced blaster bolt. If the prequels taught us literally anything at all about movie making, it's that the director simply cannot be the only voice in the production. Treating him as such opens the door to auteur-ego trainwrecks.
Unless it's Clint Eastwood, but there has to be an exception to the rule lol
 

medv4380

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RA92 said:
medv4380 said:
RA92 said:
He's one of the best film-makers today.
Debatable. He certainly has his own unique flare, but even being as loved by his fans his films don't appeal to the general audience. I presonally like his slap stick comedy, but they don't sell tickets. Scott Pilgram was his highest grossing film of late, and that only made 31m Domestic. His latest only made 26m. For being one of the "best" he certainly doesn't rank up there with Speilberg.

Not sure what popularity has to do with good film-making. And Joss Whedon wasn't exactly a big Hollywood money-maker before Avengers, was he?


As it stands Write may just be like Jim Carrey. Good, but only if you're in the mood for slap stick. When he starts to do stuff with more depth and breadth like the actual best directors then I might consider your pov. Until then he's just a slap stick director that's made a few cult films that have a rabid fan base.
And you would have had said the same thing about the Russo brothers before The Winter Soldier.
Incorrect, and if you bothered to lookup Write's and the Russo Brothers filmography you'd see a fairly huge difference. The Russo Brothers at least have a bit of variety, and like Joss Weddon proved themselves mostly with TV Directing. Write has a very limited filmography with him as the director, and they are all Slap Stick. Ant Man was his chance to prove he could do something else. Being an Indie Hipster whining about how he shouldn't have sold out doesn't help his case except to Indie Hipsters. The Irony about Hispsters is that their work has to be inherently bad to most people otherwise they have to abandon it so they can still be "indie".
 

RA92

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medv4380 said:
Incorrect, and if you bothered to lookup Write's and the Russo Brothers filmography you'd see a fairly huge difference. The Russo Brothers at least have a bit of variety, and like Joss Weddon proved themselves mostly with TV Directing.

Right. Let's look at the Russo Brother's filmography.

Lucky. Comedy. Arrested Development (which I love the shit out of). Comedy. What about Brian. Comedy. Carpoolers. Comedy. Community. Comedy. Running Wilde. Comedy. The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret. Comedy. Happy Endings. Comedy. Up All Night. Comedy. Animal Practice. Comedy. The only show that has its Wikipedia page and isn't a comedy is LAX, to which they were executive producers, not directors.

Let's look at films. Welcome to Collinwood. Comedy. You, Me and Dupree. Comedy. A Friggin' Christmas Miracle. Comedy.

That's a lot of variety. I sure could see their next project being a Robert Redford-inspired conspiracy action-thriller!

Write has a very limited filmography with him as the director, and they are all Slap Stick.

Have you seen how kinetic the camera work in Hot Fuzz is, without being disorienting like Michael Bay movies? Or the action sequences? Have you seen the tonal shift at the end of The World's End which made it something more than a throwaway slapstick comedy? He's the kind of director who <url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FOzD4Sfgag>doesn't waste a single frame. Dismissing his entire filmography as slapstick is very reductive.


Ant Man was his chance to prove he could do something else. Being an Indie Hipster whining about how he shouldn't have sold out doesn't help his case except to Indie Hipsters. The Irony about Hispsters is that their work has to be inherently bad to most people otherwise they have to abandon it so they can still be "indie".
You lost me when you used the word 'hispter' (a rather nebulous term used by everyone to describe any sect they dislike).

I haven't seen him whining. Both fronts have been quiet since the split. Even Whedon has shown solidarity with Wright.

http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.1805753!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/article_970/wright27f-2-web.jpg
 

Azuaron

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What many people fail to realize is that there's a difference between "executive meddling" and "editorial oversight". What Marvel's doing, and how they're doing it successfully, is editorial oversight, something that movies, historically, haven't needed. If you were lucky you had a linear series of movies, each building on the last, and you didn't need to know what some other project was working up to at the same time.

When I was growing up, I got really into fantasy via the Dragonlance series. There is no editorial oversight. There are... four? At least four different series that tackle how the companions got together, and what they did following their brief split before the reunion in the first Chronicles books, and they all contradict each other. Weis and Hickman even openly mocked one of them in the Twins trilogy and called them "ridiculous bards tales".

Despite some serious investment in the series (I own--and have read--over 100 Dragonlance books), I had to give up the series because the canon is an absolute mess, and one of the great parts of these kinds of series is that the world and history keep building off of each other to make them more than the sum of their parts, and that can't happen with authors haphazardly adding whatever the hell they want, then it getting retconned, then not, then whatever. If the creators don't have respect for the world and history they're helping to build, then they need to not be a part of it, and behind the scenes their must be someone keeping all the canon in check.

In something like the MCU, this would ideally be a pretty light touch, but it sounds like Edgar Wright had a very specific vision for Ant-Man, and when that didn't mesh with what Marvel was doing, he had to be let go for everyone's benefit.
 

medv4380

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RA92 said:
I haven't seen him whining. Both fronts have been quiet since the split. Even Whedon has shown solidarity with Wright.
Maybe you should have been paying attention when Write posted a pic of Buster Keaton [http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/movies/wright-posts-deletes-apparent-dig-marvel-ant-man-exit-report-article-1.1806878] in some vain attempt at comparing his "drama" to Busters plite. When he does something that offensive he gets the "Hipster" label. At least he realized it and deleted the tweet.

You might want to go back and look at the origins of this argument. Your claim of Write being one of the "best" is still bogus, and your red herring of dragging in other directors is only that a red herring. Try comparing write to the actual Best Directors and you'll find Write is woefully lacking at this stage in his life, maybe in another 10 years. The brothers aren't even close to the best and I never claimed they were, but their experience still trumps write ATM.
 

RA92

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medv4380 said:
RA92 said:
I haven't seen him whining. Both fronts have been quiet since the split. Even Whedon has shown solidarity with Wright.
Maybe you should have been paying attention when Write posted a pic of Buster Keaton [http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/movies/wright-posts-deletes-apparent-dig-marvel-ant-man-exit-report-article-1.1806878] in some vain attempt at comparing his "drama" to Busters plite. When he does something that offensive he gets the "Hipster" label. At least he realized it and deleted the tweet.

Yeah, I missed that, but what do you expect? He's been working on it for 8 years, and now its been taken away from him. So yeah, it's some legit "drama". His reaction is pretty fucking subdued.

And I still don't see a reason for the 'hipster' label. Is it for the obscurity of that reference?


You might want to go back and look at the origins of this argument. Your claim of Write being one of the "best" is still bogus...

I gave you reasons for why I think he's one of the best film makers - for his cinematography. His movies also consistently get high ratings. If you don' find his movies interesting, that's your pejorative, not a problem in my claim.

As if there is an 'objective' measuring stick to judge the best of something as subjective as taste in movies.



... and your red herring of dragging in other directors is only that a red herring.

No. I was refuting your point that the Russo bros had more variety. Their work is extensive, but not diverse. Learn the difference.



Try comparing write to the actual Best Directors and you'll find Write is woefully lacking at this stage in his life, maybe in another 10 years. The brothers aren't even close to the best and I never claimed they were, but their experience still trumps write ATM.

I think you meant to write Actual Certified Best Directors TM.

Tell me, every time someone says such-and-such is one of the best movies/series/games, do you instinctively jump on their throats and 'objectively' prove how they are, indeed, not the cream of the crop?
 

SonOfVoorhees

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Marvel has done a good job with the choice of directors with each movie. As much as it sucks Edgar Wright isnt making it, though im sure he just had a different vision to Marvel so its not an issue. But i know Marvel will hire another suitable director for the movie. I also hope Edgar Wright makes his own superhero movie, as i would love to see that movie. Simon Pegg as a superman type character would be awesome.