HOLLYWOOD – Following the departure of Edgar Wright, rumour has been rife about who will succeed him in the director’s chair for the Marvel movie Ant-Man, but now we have a name: Funny Games director Michael Haneke.
Kevin Feige – announcing the decision – said:
We are absolutely delighted to have a film-maker of Mike’s calibre on board. He has a visual style that fits the Marvel universe and knows exactly what we want to do. We’ve had many great directors – Joss Whedon, and Kenneth Branagh, and we also had Jon Favreau.
What do you think Haneke will bring to the franchise?
Primarily his sensibility. He has that European outlook which will really go well with Ant-Man. Plus he worked well with Paul Rudd.
Haneke worked with Rudd?
Yeah, in The White Ribbon, he had an uncredited role. Rudd loves his art house. He was raped in a Gaspar Noé film, I forget which one.
But isn’t it a risk giving such a big budget to a director unfamiliar with the genre?
Unfamiliar? Are you kidding me? For starters, Haneke loves comic books, his agent says. And he showed he could handle this kind of material in Benny’s Video and Spider-man.
Yeah. Wait, what?
Don’t you know he did three Spider-Man films? The last one wasn’t great shakes, but…
That was Sam Raimi.
Haneke borrowed Sam Raimi’s name as his nom de plume. He didn’t want his Cineaste credentials besmirched.
But I thought Raimi…
Couldn’t direct you to your table if he owned the restaurant. No, it was all Haneke. From Army of Darkness on.
Wow.
Yeah.
Ant-Man will be released in 2015.