Edgar Wright was hired with Joe Cornish in 2006 to write a script based on the character created by John Byrne, Bob Layton, and David Michelinie. Wright and Cornish wrote 3 drafts of a script and the film went into pre-production in 2013, with Wright to direct. Paul Rudd was cast in early 2014 and Wright left the project (citing "creative differences" after the 5th draft of the screenplay had been rejected) - along with much of the crew - and Peyton Reed replaced him. Adam McKay and Paul Rudd rewrote some of the script. "The idea, the trajectory, the goal, and the blueprint of it all, is really Edgar and Joe. It's their story," Rudd told Entertainment Weekly. "We changed some scenes, we added new sequences, we changed some characters, we added new characters. If you took the two scripts and held them up together they'd be very different—but the idea is all theirs."