"I thought the script was not only the best script that Marvel had ever had, but the most Marvel script I'd read," Whedon said of the screenplay for Wright's version of the film, written by Wright and Joe Cornish. "I had no interest in Ant-Man. [Then,] I read the script and was like, 'Of course! This is so good!' "

Whedon said that the script effectively channeled the Ant-Man comic books and was "irreverent and funny and could make what was small large, and vice versa."

"I don't know where things went wrong," he continued. "But I was very sad. Because I thought, 'This is a no-brainer. This is Marvel getting it exactly right.' Whatever dissonance that came, whatever it was, I don't understand why it was bigger than a marriage that seemed so right." He added that he doesn't blame either party solely for the friction.

After Wright's departure, Peyton Reed came aboard to direct the project, and the script was rewritten by Adam McKay and star Paul Rudd. Wright and Cornish are credited with writing the story.

This isn't the first time that Whedon has displayed his support for Wright. The day after Wright's Ant-Man departure was announced, Whedon tweeted a photo of himself holding up a Cornetto ice cream cone, a reference to Wright's so-called Cornetto film trilogy of Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and The World's End.

Ant-Man crawls into theaters July 17, while Ultron comes out May 1.

Email: Ryan.Gajewski@THR.com

Twitter: @_RyanGajewski