This happens on films all the time, not just shared universe super-hero films. Studios have millions invested in a project and executive producers and producers call for changes all the time, before, during, and after filming. When I lived in Boston, I worked in a theater to help pay for college expenses. It frequently hosted test screenings, and if reactions were poor, studios and producers would often call for re-shoots and rewrites of certain parts of the film. The one I most notably remember was Russia House, where the audience hated the ending and the studio went back and re-shot it. Not re-edit it, but called the cast and crew back and re-shot it a new ending they wrote after the test screening did so poorly. It's the studio system, and film-makers choose to deal with it, or make indy films. It's not unique to Marvel Studios or shared universe films. It also isn't happening more now than before, we just have access to behind the scenes info more now than before because of things like the net, 24 hour entertainment news channels who need fodder to feed their programming, etc. Things like the Edgar Wright departure happen quite often in Hollywood-look at James Gunn's reaction-I love them both but some people aren't meant to be together is what he essentially said. Wright doesn't have the temperament to work in a studio system, and that's cool he wants to stay true to his vision, but a studio being hands on and making it uncomfortable for auteurs like Wright is not unique to it being shared universe movie, it an age old story in Hollywood.

-M

Welles is actually the perfect example. As big a name as he is, he only completed 13 full length films that saw release, as many were heavily edited by the studios or deemed not worthy of release and were held back by the studios unreleased. Welles went to Europe for 8 years at the peak of his career to escape the studio system of Hollywood, returned to do one major film (Touch of Evil) and then went back to Europe and did not return until the waning years of his career, when he was self-financing all his projects to keep them free of the studio system tinkering (one of my personal favorite Welles projects-F is for Fake-came from this period). If someone with the stature and cachet of Orson fricking Welles was subject to the tribulations of the studio system, a guy like Edgar Wright is not going to get his way. Its the studio's way or the highway. Always has been, always will be. Their money, their say. Want the sat, pony up the money. That's the film industry in a nutshell.

-M

I think Robert means Wright not Feige, but not sure.

And it's simple-the studio hires a director to make their movie, and he has creative freedom as long as he continues to make their movie, and his vision is what they want if it matches their vision, but when the director's vision doesn't match, or he tries to use creative freedom to make his movie with their money not their movie, well then creative freedom translates to you're free to leave or make our movie. I don't think Marvel Studios knew how to conceptualize an Ant-Man movie that worked, so they hired a director with a vision in Wright. Wright sold them on a vision and they bought into it, but I think Wright's vision continued to evolve into something different-not surprising, works tend to grow/evolve in the process, but Marvel Studios wanted the vision they were sold initially and that they then used to draw names like Michael Douglas into the project. When Wright's creative freedom began to take him in a different direction than the initial pitch, problems began and I don't think either side was willing to budge-Wright to go backwards to where he was at, and Marvel Studios to go where Wright had gone. There has been a lot of time between the first inklings of an Ant-Man movie and the production kicking into high gear, time enough for Marvel to have invested a lot in what they thought Wright was going to deliver and time enough for Wright's vision of what the movie should be to have changed and evolved. Again I go back to what Gunn had to say, these are both good creative forces who just weren't a good fit for each other. You can point fingers, but I don't think it's black and white as to who was right or wrong, I think there is blame, and justified concerns on both sides.

-M

Sorry for the errors.

In a situation like this, I'm tempted to side with the studio. I have limited sympathy for someone who is overly obsessed with presenting their vision (with no room for compromise) on long established characters like those featured in the Marvel movies. Of course you want the director to present himself as an artist, but if you sign on to play with someone elses toys (as with all these superhero movies) it's absurd to have the same attitude as an independent filmmaker working on something of your own.

However...when its clearly an "art first" movie I take a dim view of studio execs meddling in affairs far beyond their keen as non-artists.

It's not playing with someone else's toys that is the issue though, it's playing with someone else's money. There's always been playing with other people's toys though. In older Hollywood, the toys weren't IP but performers, as studios had actors/actresses signed to exclusive contracts and managed their image and had to maintain certain levels of quality to keep the star power of those performers intact. It was much more important to protect your toy if it was Bogart than Iron Man, and a director who was given Bogart to lead a feature had to be mindful of what the studio wanted in terms of image and contest for Bogey. It's really a case of the more things change, the more they stay the same, but a lot more attention is paid to it now because of the pervasiveness of behind the scenes reporting and scooping that exists in the modern media culture.

-M

But now, even if the test screen reactions are fine, they have to build a lead in to the next movie. And there's always the start off with "Iron Man can't die, so and so can't this, so and so never does that" that you get with all licensed property and not with an original product. And the test screen changes are done after filming, not days before. It's just selective editing.

At this stage of the game, there has to me an understanding that Marvel Studios is basically telling one huge interconnected, serialized, story. This isn't all that surprising giving that the people making these movies today (particularly in the case of Wheedon) are huge comic book fans and grew up with the idea of shared universes ingrained on their imaginations. When you combine this with the corporate love for cross-synergy, you have a match. Let's not underestimate the foresight in all this; when these movies are all in the can (the Thanos arc) there will be a stronger incentive for having all of them in your DVD library as compared to traditional stand-alone films.

I find it very interesting that they're basically using a 1980's comic book publishing formula with these big budget, mainstream films. (I see much more in common with Secret Wars or Acts of Vengeance than I do any of the modern stuff.)