Oh good lord. On the brink of Disney’s buyout of Marvel, 20th Century Fox has now hired producer Akiva Goldsman, infamously renowned for his deplorable “Batman & Robin” script, to lead a reboot of the “Fantastic Four.”
The franchise saw two films this decade, both helmed by Tim Story and starring the quartet of Ioan Grufford, Jessica Alba, Chris Evans and Michael Chiklis. Despite being slammed by critics alike though, the films still managed to gross over $600 million worldwide which is likely to be part of reason why a reboot is now being sanctioned, cause quality isn’t part of the picture.
Also on board is “Heroes” producer and “The Green Lantern” scribe Michael Green who has been brought on board to pen a script for the reboot.
Fox, who are also considering a “Daredevil” reboot, will just not let a bad project die a quiet and dignified death. And or they just can’t help themselves milk more money from a project. Sony are the same. “Spider-Man 4,” with Raimi and co. is on the docket, but James Vanderbilt, hired to write ‘Spidey 5 & 6,’ is writing with reboot in mind says DealMemo (Tobey Maguire, Raimi and Kirsten Dunst probably not wanting to be tied to these films for the rest of their natural born lives).
Fox controls “Fantastic Four” in perpetuity, as well as “Daredevil,” “X-Men” and “Silver Surfer” so expect more and more of these films (this is why “X-Men babies” or junior high or whatever its called, is also up for consideration; milk it!) and is as many permutations and combinations as they can muster. “Silver Surfer meets Daredevil”? Hey, that’s a film!
Studios need to learn making a serious live-action film about a family of super-heroes is near impossible and this is why the Tim Story “Fantastic Four” films devolved into corny camp and comedy. The closest anyone’s come to creating a successful film like this was “The Incredibles,” which essentially was the same concept slightly and wisely tweaked for the animation world.
We’d tell you the two ‘FF’ films were an embarrassment, but clearly you have two eyes and ears. Yet another day, yet another predictable and lame-brained Hollywood announcement.
This "reboot" thing is killing me. It used to be that when nobody liked a franchise anymore, it took 10-15 years before they could bring it back. Now with a single word: "Reboot" – it's given them license to continue dead franchises less than a year after they're done. I can't fathom how this became acceptable in our culture.
Carson, I came here to express the same outrage, but you said it best. Can't we at least get a decade??
It's totally indefensible and lame, but it's the model these days with chicken shit Hollywood. Keep developing the same projects that make heaps of money. Seems to be only getting worse.
The 'perpetual' licenses Fox has for X-Men, Fantastic Four, Silver Surfer and Daredevil expire if they don't release a film featuring those characters every three to four years. If Fox don't have new X-Men and Fantastic Four movies out by 2013, they lose those properties to Disney.
It's true, there's an argument to be made that none of these films are moving fwd at all, but are simply being put "into development" so Fox can retain the rights.
Make that 2011 for Fantastic Four, which explains why this is going into production so quickly.
Sony have a similar agreement on Spider-Man, which is why they're developing 5 and 6 already.
Fox has no clue about developing franchises and striking while the iron is hot, which is what allowed Bryan Singer to jump to Superman when he'd been campaigning for X3 for awhile. Fact is, Fantastic Four could feasibly last five or six movies since they are probably in the top five of comic properties that have enough classic stories for a long-lasting franchise, and there's no reason a nobody like Chris Evans could turn them down. Reboot sounds like they'd be going cheaper, with a cheaper cast, and I didn't think they could go cheaper than Ioan Gruffaud.
I would see the shit out of "Silver Surfer vs. Daredevil" though.