Kevin Feige may not be a household name for many people but he’s been the driving force behind the Marvel Cinematic Universe and continues to do so, even in times of presumed turmoil. Since the departure of Edgar Wright from ANT-MAN (something I’m actually enthused about), there has been much speculation about the future of the film. Recently, IGN got down to business with Feige and asked why Peyton Reed (Yes, Man) is a good choice for the movie. The interview is as follows.
“Number one – thank you for asking the question in that way, which is doing what we’re doing which is thinking about the movie and the end result of the movie,” said Kevin Feige when IGN asked the Marvel Studios producer about the drama surrounding Ant-Man, its former director Edgar Wright and his replacement. “Peyton [Reed] 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…” The Marvel Studios president continued, “He’s come in to meet on a lot of our movies over the years, in particular Guardians of the Galaxy. 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.”
“It was not a slam-dunk that he would just step into it and do it,” added Kevin Feige. “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. 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. 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, [who directed this year’s 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.”
With this information coming from Feige, I’d agree that they don’t take hiring decisions lightly. The Russo’s were a risk, even going back to Jon Favreau who had Elf under his belt. I think Marvel will deliver another fantastic film and I’ll be there, a fan through and through.
