That said, it's not all that unusual a thing to have happen. And some of the Nerd Rage over Edgar Wright's leaving Ant-Man smacks of hyperbole for the sake of slamming Marvel/Disney. When you see references to "globally adored" and "the Internet was stunned," you know you're reading something that's a lot more subjective than is probably healthy.
Given Wright's track record, his Ant-Man would probably have been idiosyncratic and highly amusing. That might not have been the right thing for a meta-franchise, at least from the standpoint of the studios. That doesn't necessarily mean we're going to get pabulum action-adventure (though it might), it simply means that when you are creating an interlocking set of movies, there is going to be more pressure for some overlap in tonality and content, in a way that a maverick filmmaker may not want to give in on.
I've enjoyed all the MCU films so far, and I have no reason to believe I won't enjoy Ant-Man, even without Wright at the helm. Sooner or later, of course, I won't enjoy one or more of them, but I think I'll wait to see what comes of this kerfuffle in terms of an actual movie before crying dooooooooom.
Reshared post from +Geeks of Doom
Last Friday, Edgar Wright, the globally adored filmmaker behind the Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy and Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World, abruptly departed the production of Ant-Man, the movie intended to be the kick-off to Marvel Studios' Phase Three slate.…
Edgar Wright Briefly Breaks His Silence On His Departure From ‘Ant-Man’ – Geeks of Doom
Last Friday, Edgar Wright, the globally adored filmmaker behind the Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy and Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World, abruptly departed the production of Ant-Man, the movie intended to be the kick-off to Marvel Studios’ Phase Three slate. During the weekend that followed, details over Wright’s surprising surrender of his directing duties emerged that suggested Marvel had taken the script out of his and co-writer Joe Cornish’s h…
For better or worse, Marvel is now a genre. A brand and style as distinct as Spam. All the movies are going to have a lot in common stylistically because that's the Marvel 'flavor'. Somehow I don't think individual directors are going to be able to do more than spin that flavor a little.
+Curt Thompson I suspect you are correct, just as Marvel editorial exerts a measure of creative control over individual writers in the comics. That can be, as you say, for better or worse (or both).