For anyone who was curious to the exact status of Edgar Wright‘s Ant-Man, we now have a definitive answer. The Hollywood Reporter reports that Wright spent about a week earlier this month “shooting footage for a reel that will be used to test out the potential look and tone of his movie, as well as to decide how convincing Ant-Man’s powers look on screen.”
And while Wright wouldn’t comment on the situation, we can speculate all we want after the jump.
What does the existance of the test reel say about Ant-Man? It says that whatever Wright and co-writer Joe Cornish have on the page, Marvel and Disney likely won’t give it the official greenlight without knowing they can pull it off.
That, in turn, probably has something to with the main character, Hank Pym, who can radically change his size in either direction, super small or super big. I’d bet that – much like you’re trying to do now – Disney executives had a hard time picturing how a movie about a man who is the size of an ant would work, especially as a big budget action movie. The inverse, a man the size of a building, makes more sense.
Whether they love the reel or not, Ant-Man will likely not start filming until later this year or early next year as per a recent interview. Wright’s already committed to doing The World’s End in the next few weeks, which he co-wrote with Simon Pegg.
One last thing. The timing of this reel, just a few weeks out from San Diego Comic-Con, is extremely exciting. While the odds are it is for internal purposes only, can you imagine the reaction Kevin Feige would get in Hall H if he was like, “Who wants to see some Edgar Wright directed footage of Ant-Man?” The place would go through the roof. Dare to dream.