Netflix premiered the new series “Lockwood & Co.” yesterday, the latest work from English comedian and filmmaker Joe Cornish who was also responsible for “Attack the Block” and “The Kid Who Would Be King”.
Cornish is also known for his collaborations with “Baby Driver” and “Shaun of the Dead” director Edgar Wright. He had a role in Wright’s “Hot Fuzz,” whilst the pair co-wrote Steven Spielberg’s “The Adventures of Tintin” adaptation along with a scrapped earlier version of Marvel’s first “Ant-Man” film.
Recently appearing on The Playlist Podcast, he spoke about his and Wright’s experience with Marvel Studios. The pair became attached to “Ant-Man” way back in the mid-2000s – before the MCU was a thing. Then both exited due to creative differences in 2014.
Whilst Peyton Reed ultimately took over as director, Wright and Cornish retained writing and story credits for the finished product. Cornish explains how much of a visible change they’ve seen with Marvel since they were attached:
“When Edgar and I first met Marvel, they were in offices above a BMW showroom in Beverly Hills. It was around the time of Ang Lee’s ‘Hulk,’ and [Jon] Favreau hadn’t even started working on the first ‘Iron Man’.
Superhero movies were not a thing. They were not perceived as a cool thing to do. They were kind of a cruddy genre. I guess because VFX hadn’t evolved to the point where they could put what was on page on the screen. So, they always felt like they were reaching for something they couldn’t achieve.
We worked on [“Ant-Man”] for something like eight years, on and off. And in that time, the landscape changed completely, The technology changed completely. Audiences fell in love with superhero movies. All the stuff that people loved in the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s, ’80s in comic books were suddenly translated on screen in a really direct way that had never happened before.”
As people fell in love with the genre again and Marvel expanded, Wright’s creative vision began to clash with Marvel Studios’ groundwork laying of the MCU and so they exited over creative differences. Cornish adds there are no hard feelings from Marvel regarding their exit:
“That kind of overtook us in the sense that Marvel didn’t necessarily want the authored movie that Edgar and I wanted to make because, at that point, they had this behemoth on their hands. They had this universe where the movies had to integrate. Edgar is an auteur. Edgar Wright makes Edgar Wright movies. In the end, that’s why it didn’t happen, I guess.
Having said that, a lot of our stuff is still in there, and I really like that movie. We’re as excited as anybody to see where it goes next. We feel connected to that cast as well because Edgar cast it. The designs are still in it. There are still a couple of little Edgar Wright ants scuttling around invisibly in those movies.”
The comments come as “Lockwood & Co.” is now on Netflix, whilst a third “Ant-Man” film in the form of “Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania” opens in cinemas on February 17th.
Source: The Playlist
