CS: What's been going on since you finished promoting "Hot Fuzz" last year? I know you've been always juggling a couple different projects including "Ant-Man" and "Scott Pilgrim."
Wright: We're in between two different strikes. I don't think anybody really knows what's happening with the (actors strike). Yeah, I've just been writing. I wrote the first draft of "Ant-Man." I wrote two drafts of "Scott Pilgrim." I started to work on a solo project and also me and Simon are… (starts to pause as not to reveal too much.)

CS: The interesting thing about "Ant-Man" is that after "Iron Man" opened so big, there was this huge Marvel Studios bells and whistles announcement of their movies for the next three years and "Ant-Man" wasn't mentioned.
Wright: I think having spoken to Kevin Feige, the "Ant-Man" film I have in mind is a bit more stand-alone, and that's kind of what I wanted to do in a way. I think my take on it is something that may or may not fit into what "The Avengers" would eventually do, but they're very keen on it and they've even talked a release date with me in very vague terms. It looks likely that I will do "Scott Pilgrim" next and then "Ant-Man" straight afterwards.

CS: I want to ask some more "Ant-Man" stuff because besides the release date, there's been a lot of chatter and speculation about what that movie might be like, whether it's a straight comedy or not. Did you look at any specific issues or stories to based the movie on?
Wright: It doesn't really have elements of an entire strand or series, because Ant-Man is a character that over forty years, he's kind of cropped up in various different guises, and it's always interesting to me what elements of the character people latch onto. Everyone seems to latch onto the wife-beater elements. I'm not even sure if I read that particular story. I maybe read parts of it. You know, the only thing is that parts of it touch upon is the whole mythos, and basically, it's the story about Hank Pym and Scott Lang. Our big spin on it is an origin tale for one of them and kind of like a swan song for the other.

CS: Are you going to be able to get the Wasp in there at all?
Wright: In a very roundabout way. We want to sort of leave some things for some future visions or spin-off things as well. It's difficult to tell forty years of Avengers history in one film, and I'd rather concentrate on two or three great characters.

CS: Ant-Man also had the worst villains in the Marvel Universe.
Wright: Living Eraser…

CS: Egghead…
Wright: Like The Protractor… it always seemed like for the first 12 issues of "Ant-Man," it was just the contents of a pencil case.

CS: You could probably make up a villain and it would be better than any of the villains in the comic books.
Wright: I don't think there's any villains from the original comics, I mean Ant-Man standalone, that are like famous enough to… I mean, in a way, one of the things that was sort of a high concept of characters so much is that you don't need to have a Marvel super-villain in the film. Ant-Man is enough in an otherwise kind of real world.

CS: The good thing is that the character doesn't have that many diehard fans, at least not that I know of, although maybe they'll come out of the woodwork when you're at Comic-Con talking about the movie.
Wright: "Hey, you didn't beat his wife enough!"

CS: (laughs) No, no, he really didn't beat his wife at all when he was Ant-Man. That was like later when he had five different personalities.
Wright: I think you got the sense with the original. I had lunch with Stan Lee and it was very interesting talking to him about Ant-Man because he said to me that he always felt like Ant-Man was a character that should have been bigger, and like they made mistakes, even just in the artwork, that sort of prevented him from doing that. It's kind of interesting. He said that he always felt that Ant-Man was a character that had more potential than it ever really delivered on. I like that Cold War stuff, it's great. Ant-Man taking on the Russkies single-handedly, it's funny.

Exclusive: When Might We See Edgar Wright's Ant-Man?

Also we wanted to quickly ask Feige about the rumors on CHUD earlier this week, about Marvel Studios looking to make lower-budget movies based on some of the other Marvel characters not currently under license to other studios. Feige kept things close to chest and wouldn't outright confirm or deny, although it certainly seems like a viable option:

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Ant-Man Movie: Marvel Reveals Test Footage From New Project At Comic-Con



Ant-Man may be a lesser-known character in the Marvel universe, but not for much longer. As part of its presentation in Hall H at Comic-Con on Saturday night, Marvel teased test footage from the cult favorite. It looks like director Edgar Wright may have the honor of bringing Ant-Man to the big screen.

Wright joked about the "Terrence Malick approach to superhero movies" before screening a reel from an "unfinished test." In the clip, Ant-Man was seen fighting two men in a hallway. HuffPost's source on the scene described it as clearly in early stages of production.

"'Ant-Man' will kick your ass one inch at a time," Wright concluded. No one has currently been cast.

Prior to Wright's reveal, rumors ran rampant that Marvel would make an "Ant-Man" movie announcement at Comic-Con. During a Comic-Con panel for the short film "Item 47" (part of "Marvel's The Avengers" Blu-ray release), it was heavily alluded to that "Ant-Man" would be unveiled by Marvel on Saturday night.

Wright has been teasing fans for a while, and the "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World" director even tweeted a photo of Ant-Man fan art back in May. The project's roots go back even further, however, with references to "Ant-Man" occurring as early as 2006. Wright wrote the script for the film with Joe Cornish ("Attack the Block").

In the Marvel universe, Ant-Man is the superhero alter ego of scientist Henry Pym, who creates a formula that shrinks him down to the size of an ant. Along with his girlfriend, Janet Van Dyne (who later became The Wasp), Ant-Man helped form the Avengers in the comic books. (Unfortunately for Ant-Man fans, that didn't happen in the recently released "Marvel's The Avengers.")