At the end of the Marvel panel at this year's Comic Con, Marvel President of Production Kevin Feige had managed to get Robert Downey Jr., Samuel L. Jackson, Scarlett Johansson, Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Jeremy Renner, Mark Ruffalo and Clark Gregg all on stage to represent the cast of The Avengers, the huge ensemble movie that will finally unite all of Marvel's solo outings. But while that list contains all of the major players in the film, one hero conspicuously absent was Ant-Man, one of the original members of the series when it began in 1963. The lack of Ant-Man had been announced by director Joss Whedon a few hours before the panel, but it still left people scratching their heads. Why not include a hero that is such a key component to the team? Apparently Edgar Wright's script has a lot to do with that.

I had the chance to sit down as part of a round-table interview with Wright today during a junket for Scott Pilgrim vs. The World where he was happy to talk about the project, which won't be due out until after The Avengers hits theaters in the summer of 2012. According to the director, a major part of the script, which has been completed for some time now, is the characters origin story, something they didn't want to skip by simply planting him in the Whedon supergroup film.

I talked to Kevin Feige about that a while back where we just discussed about whether he would be in The Avengers. The thing is, the script that I’ve written, you know, whether it’s next or not I don’t know, the chronology of it or the way it works wouldn’t really fit in with what they do. And my film is very much an introduction to that character, and so it wasn’t something where it felt right to introduce him in that film. Maybe if I do the solo Ant-Man film and maybe there’s a later Avengers then they could draft him in later. But it didn’t work with the kind of the angle that we were going to do with the origin that I’d written.

As implied in the quote, Wright isn't sure yet what his next project is, be it Ant-Man, the completion of the Blood and Ice Cream Trilogy (with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost), or something else entirely. The Avengers will already have enough on its to-do list by trying to get those without comic book expertise to learn about the whole mythos and back story so this very well might be the best move. Don't give up Nathan Fillion. Your time may still may come.