Following the departure of Edgar Wright, Anchorman director Adam McKay was being courted to direct Ant-Man for Disney and Marvel though has passed up the opportunity. It seemed a strange direction for the movie to be heading in, though the heavyweight studios are likely to have been attracted to McKay's long history with lead star Paul Rudd. 

Adam McKayAdam McKay Will Not Direct Ant-Man

Wright, who last directed The World's End, had been attached to the superhero movie since 2006 though resigned last week over creative differences. It left Disney scrambling around for a director late on Friday night and they would have confident in landing McKay before the comedy filmmaker rejected their advances. 

Sources suggest Wright walked away from the high profile project after Marvel changed a version of the script that he and Joe Cornish had written. After Marvel confirmed his exit, the British director tweeted a photograph of the silent film star Buster Keaton holding a Cornetto ice cream cone - a reference to his Cornetto trilogy that many linked to Keaton's own struggles with the studio system in the late 1920s. 

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"The decision to move on is amicable," Marvel said at the time. "A new director will be announced shortly."

Based on the comic-book of the same name, Ant-Man tells the story of biochemist Hank Pym who uses subatomic particles to create a size-altering formula. However, when tests go awry, he realises that he can communicate and control insects.

The movie co-stars Michael Douglas and Evangeline Lilly and is set for July 17, 2015. It's not clear whether Wright's departure will delay the movie.