I wanted to take the time to rant a little bit. It’s my website and I can do what I want to, sorta thing. Recently, the Fantastic Four was rebooted by Fox. The film made no money and there is a lot of controversy around it’s production; leading to the fact that it bombed both financially and critically. I want to explore my thoughts on the film, some of the reasons I believe that the film was received so poorly, and finally; where I think that ‘Comic Books First Family’ will end up. Okay, let’s get to it then shall we?
First of all, I didn’t hate this film like the rest of the world did. I came in to it with very VERY low expectations. I had only seen the footage from the first two trailers and while the initial one looked like a sci-fi horror film, the second bit of footage wasn’t sure what type of movie it was trying to be. As a result, I didn’t think it looked like a movie I would get too invested in. Going into the theatre after reading the critics lambasting and seeing the director himself talk trash about it (see HERE), I couldn’t go in with any lower expectations.
I sat through a 70-minute science fiction film that ended with 20 minutes of trying to be a superhero film. The character development was pretty threadbare other than Mr. Fantastic (Miles Teller). Sue (Kate Mara) and The Thing (Jamie Bell) never interacted even once, and Johnny (Michael B. Jordan) was fine, but Chris Evans (Captain America) did a better job in the first FF films. All that being said, I enjoyed myself because I just didn’t care. I didn’t have the type of investment in the characters like I did with say a Spider-Man or Batman film, and for two-thirds of the film; it’s fine.
So, lets get into what plagued this movie.
- Josh Trank:
- He made a splash with Chronicle, but then got a HUGE studio film where he was rebooting a franchise based off a 60 year old property. He took it upon himself to write AND direct and in many ways let the studio consume him.
- Behind-the-scenes stories range from him showing up to set drunk, fighting with Kate Mara, and racking up thousands of dollars in fees for destroying the house he was renting in New Orleans.
- He sent out that now famous tweet (see above) that said he had a different vision for the movie that was taken over by the Studio
- He was kicked off of Star Wars for reasons that seem to point for how he acted during the making of FF
- After all that, he’s now ‘Lawyer’d Up’ because of the scrutiny he’s been facing regarding the film.
- Fox:
- Said that X-Men and FF would exist in a universe, the day the movie came out, they said that they existed in two separate universes
- Didn’t allow press to review the film until the day before the movie, never a good sign
- They supposedly kicked off Trank and writer/producer Simon Kinberg had to direct the last 3rd of the movie and even enlist the skills of Drew Goddard who saved World War Z from being destroyed
- They didn’t even put Stan Lee in a cameo
- Check out even more reasons via the THR link.
All these things combined, had critics and audiences scratching their heads and what they saw, and publicly destroying it on Social Media. There have been cries for the characters to return back to Marvel Studios and my next article will explain why that doesn’t really matter as much as people think it does.
