Ant-Man Director Peyton Reed Almost Directed Guardians Of The Galaxy

In spite of the chaos that seems to surround Marvel's Ant-Man , the fact is the studio is still batting a thousand. They have one of the year's biggest hits in Captain America: The Winter Soldier; there are high hopes for Guardians Of The Galaxy (tracking at high $60 million, close to the original Thor); and next year's biggest summer movie is sure to be The Avengers: Age Of Ultron. But if your worries persisted, just know that Peyton Reed, the new Ant-Man, actually wasn't some last-minute desperation hire. No - to hear it from Kevin Feige, much like Nick Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D., Feige has had his eye on Reed for a very long time.

In an interview with IGN , Feige reveals that Reed was actually one of the director candidates in the running to head up production on the Guardians Of The Galaxy. Said the Marvel Studios President,

"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."

Feige also confirms what we've known, which is that Reed was indeed attached to an earlier incarnation of Fantastic Four before Tim Story jumped onto the project years ago. So while Edgar Wright had been attached to Ant-Man for almost a decade, the relationship between Feige and Reed goes even futher back. Let this be a lesson, job-seekers: never burn any bridges with potential employers. In a decade, they just might call you to direct Ant-Man!

Going further in the interview, Feige explained how his relationship with the filmmaker allowed the two of them to be on the same page when discussing Ant-Man

"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."

Those are very generous words for a movie that reportedly has eight hundred writers, but Feige is nothing if not an excellent salesman. Ant-Man opens July 17th, 2015.