I mean... they knew they were going to lose the Oscar. Ordinary Love wasn't even written for the new album. It's been stated (whether or not it's bullshit or not) that the song caused them to slow down / stop work on the album.
So a bit more plausible/logical:
Things were going great, almost wrapped up, media storm ready to start sometime in the fall. Then this Ordinary Love opportunity comes around, and if you believe the band, they stop what they're doing on the album to write this one song for this one movie. They put the album on the backburner for a couple months.
Then they come back and revisit the album to finish it up, and since they're a few months removed from the work on the album, one or two or three or four of them decide that they can do better; other ideas pop in their head about how to make the songs more perfect, or simply to make new songs. I'm guessing with the first option -- make them more "perfect," i.e., more accessible.
So instead of just putting a bow on it, they revisit the songs late last year, said, well, we have new ideas, it's been a few months, let's keep working on it! But we'll still go through with Invisible as a single/Super Bowl ad.
Then, since they decide they have new ideas, they like Paul Epworth's version of Ordinary Love and said, "hey, why don't we let Paul Epworth take a crack at all these songs -- what can he do for them that Danger Mouse couldn't?" And then they record with him and Tedder.
And now they're working that out. It's got nothing to do with losing an Oscar that they knew they were going to lose, a double album, or anything. It's got to do with them not having to have any strict deadlines because they're U2 and because they want it to be nice and perfect.