When it was announced in July during San Diego Comic-Con that the title of Joss Whedon's Avengers sequel would be The Avengers: Age of Ultron, comic book fans around the world immediately thought of one question: "What does this mean for Ant-Man?" In the comics it was the spectacular shrinking superhero who actually first invented Ultron - creating him as a robot with brain patterns matching his own - but shortly after the Marvel Studios presentation where the aforementioned announcement was made it was confirmed that Ant-Man will not be linked to the robotic supervillain in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And now director Edgar Wright, who is writing and directing the upcoming Ant-Man movie, has explained why.
With The World's End hitting theaters stateside this weekend, Wright has been doing a good number of interviews as of late, and while speaking to The Huffington Post the filmmaker revealed why Ultron is going to be revealed before Ant-Man gets to make his live-action big screen debut - and the answer is that Wright wants to make a movie about the titular hero, not a villain. "It was never in my script," Wright said speaking about Ultron. "Even just to sort of set up what Ant-Man does is enough for one movie. It's why I think Iron Man is extremely successful because it keeps it really simple... the villain comes from the hero's technology. It's simple."
One film in particular that Wright uses to illustrate this point is Tim Burton's Batman from 1989, which he argues is more of a showcase for Jack Nicholson's take on The Joker than Michael Keaton's version of Batman.
"You know, when I was younger I used to love Tim Burton's Batman. I was like 15 and even then I was aware, 'This is really the Joker's film.' It's like, the Joker just takes over and Batman, you really don't learn too much about him. Comics have years to explain this stuff and in a movie you have to focus on one thing. So it's about kind of streamlining, I think. Some of the most successful origin films actually have a narrower focus. You cannot put 50 years of the Marvel universe into a movie. It's impossible."
And Wright has certainly had plenty of time to make his Ant-Man movie as streamlined as possible. The writer/director has been working with co-writer Joe Cornish on the script since they were first hired to develop the project back in 2006 (the same time as Thor, Captain America: The First Avenger, and The Incredible Hulk). Wright and Cornish have continued to work on the screenplay in the years since, adjusting it to make it work with the rest of the goings-on in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Hopefully they now have it exactly where they want it to be, as production will gear up next year in preparation for the film's November 2015 release date.
