Kevin Feige discusses Edgar Wright's Ant-Man departure and working with Sony on Spider-Man

In a lengthy interview over at The Hollywood Reporter, Marvel chief Kevin Feige has been discussing the studio’s upcoming superhero adventure Ant-Man ahead of its release next month, with the conversation turning towards the shock departure of original director Edgar Wright almost a decade after he was first announced as taking on the project.

“With Edgar, [the decision] was mutual. People said, ‘You guys have been working together for 10 years; why did you only figure it out a couple of months before you started filming?’ But that’s really not true. We’d been working on it for about nine months, maybe a year at most. And it became apparent to him and to us that the best thing to do was to move on. But because Edgar has a fan base and Marvel has a fan base, there’s good and bad that comes with that high profile. And one of the bads is that internal decisions and shuffles get headlines.”

Feige also went on to address the upcoming Spider-Man reboot, which sees Marvel teaming up with Sony: “We’re producing it for Sony. It’s exciting, and we’re treating it like we treat all of our films. To try to make the best version now of Spider-Man and a version of Spider-Man that inhabits this universe that we’ve created. We’re in lockstep with [Sony Motion Picture Group chairman] Tom Rothman and [producer] Amy Pascal at every turn… Without getting into the contracts, it’s definitely a Sony picture, produced by Marvel Studios. We’ve been working with each other for a number of months now. It’s been just as healthy as any of our internal discussions. We just look at it as having additional team members. We wouldn’t want to do it if we couldn’t do it in the way we’ve done all the other movies, and I think that’s what Sony wants from us.”

Ant-Man is set for release on July 17th, while the as-yet-untitled Spider-Man reboot will swing into cinemas on July 28th, 2017.