Lately, it's been nothing but roses for Marvel fans, but today comes the rare bummer, and it's a big one. Edgar Wright, who co-wrote and was set to direct Marvel's next superhero film, 'Ant-Man,' has abruptly left the project.

The news comes directly from Marvel and Disney who issued this brief statement:

Marvel and Edgar Wright jointly announced today that the studio and director have parted ways on ANT-MAN due to differences in their vision of the film. The decision to move on is amicable and does not impact the release date on July 17, 2015. A new director will be announced shortly.

There have been rumors of trouble coming from the 'Ant-Man' production (despite a cast that was locked down, we had yet to hear of a concrete start date), but we can admit to never seeing this coming. After all, Wright has been working on this film for...years? He was hired back in April, 2006, so to see his pairing with Marvel come to an end right as they were about to finally begin filming? Shocking doesn't even begin to describe it.

With a cast that included Paul Rudd, Michael Douglas, Evangeline Lilly and Patrick Wilson, the project seemed to be well on its way, but there were those pesky "creative differences" that seem to have brought the pairing to an end.

We'll guess that Marvel saw this news coming (or, even knew it was coming) and they've already had their eye on a replacement with an announcement coming soon (possibly Joe Cornish, who co-wrote the script and previously directed 'Attack the Block').

Marvel has been notoriously tough on its directors. They almost replaced Jon Favreau after the first 'Iron Man' movie over salary concerns and we've heard reports from both Alan Taylor and James Gunn that Marvel is very, VERY involved in the creative process. This might fly with directors looking to break into big-budget filmmaking, but Wright doesn't need that. There really wouldn't even be an 'Ant-Man' movie at Marvel had Wright not first suggested it, so we can certainly see him balking at any major changes Marvel had to his script at this late point.

There's obviously much more to this story that we're not getting at this early stage, but as we learn more, we'll continue to update. Until then...sh-t.

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