Last year, I was interviewing Joe Cornish about “Attack The Block,” and I asked him about the premise for the “Ant-Man’ script he’s been writing with Edgar Wright. Years ago, I’d heard their basic hook into the film, and I asked Cornish if that was still true.
There was a long silence from his end of the phone, and he finally replied, “I’m surprised you know that.” From the rest of our conversation, it was evident that they want to keep that story hook under wraps, and at this point, he and Edgar have so much time and energy invested in the picture that I hope no one spoils it for them.
It is hard to keep a secret, though, especially on something as highly-anticipated as this, and now The Hollywood Reporter says Edgar just wrapped production on a test reel for the film, designed to demonstrate how he’ll handle the character and his powers visually. We wrote today about one of the things Marvel may have planned for their Hall H panel on Saturday the 14th, but if they decided to show some test footage of Ant-Man that day as well, I expect they’d have to pass out a change of pants to everyone in the room.
It feels like this is an important film for Edgar to make, just as important as “The World’s End” will be, but for different reasons. With “The World’s End,” Edgar’s finally wrapping up the first major movement of his career, the unofficial “Cornetto” trilogy of films that started with “Shaun Of The Dead,” then continued with “Hot Fuzz.” Thanks to those films, both Simon Pegg and Nick Frost find themselves continuously in demand now, so it’s hard to get all three of them together at the same time in the same place. It’s important that they make this film together, just like it’s important for Edgar to make a big studio movie that makes some money. I love “Scott Pilgrim,” but I can acknowledge that it probably scares the hell out of the money guys when they look at it as a basic equation.
Whatever the time-table, it’s exciting to now that Marvel is still working with Edgar to make this one happen, and I hope we get to see this footage at some point.