To say things got ugly for 20th Century Fox’s “Fantastic Four” would be a profound understatement. Plagued by rumors of on set woes, everything spilled over in the last few days with director Josh Trank disowning his film on Twitter, and more word about studio interference and indecision coming to the surface. Whether or not Trank could’ve made a better film if left to his own devices is open to debate, but it certainly couldn’t have been worse than what audiences received this weekend. The stink of failure was all over the movie which opened in second place, with numbers far behind the 2005 and 2007 iterations. However, while the familiar cry has started for Fox to strike a deal with Marvel and let the comic book studio reclaim ownership of their characters, if there is one silver lining for Fox, that scenario doesn’t necessarily need to happen. There is a way Fox can hang on to the property, make that planned sequel for June 9, 2017, and hopefully finally do right by “Fantastic Four.”
To be clear, “Fantastic Four” is in no uncertain terms a disaster, creatively, financially, and by most any other metric you can imagine. This time around, Fox is in an arguably better position than where Sony was after two “The Amazing Spider-Man” films. Those highly expensive films weren’t able to escape the shadow of Sam Raimi’s original trilogy, which still stands as something of a classic in the comic book movie genre (even if “Spider-Man 3” is a mess). Sony also made the mistake of attempting to build a huge cinematic universe for their new webslinger, but they couldn’t execute. Audiences mostly shrugged at seeing the same story told with newer outfits, with the “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” earning nearly $50 million less worldwide than its predecessor, on a much higher budget. Couple that with fanboy criticisms, and an overall lack of excitement about a third movie, and Sony was left in an the awkward position of having big plans for an unreceptive and diminishing viewership.
While the “Fantastic Four” are classic characters, they have yet to have a defining big screen movie. And certainly, three varyingly lousy versions aren’t a great argument that Fox should be given another chance.But this property is far too valuable for them to just hand it over to a rival, particularly given the eventual connections it could have with their already mighty X-Men universe. While Spider-Man was just as valuable, if not more, to Sony, they are definitely still playing catch up in the comic book movie game compared to their rivals, so it only made sense for them to team with Marvel. Fox is very much a major player, and if they want to leap to the Marvel/DC playing field, “Fantastic Four” will have to be part of that formula. But how can they do it?
Keep The Cast
If there is any one thing that survived the critical mauling “Fantastic Four” received, it was the cast, and they are worth keeping around. Miles Teller, Kate Mara, Jamie Bell, and Michael B. Jordan are the exact kind of talented, rising young actors you want to anchor a franchise, and Trank was completely right to fight for them. Fox would be foolish to let go of this ensemble, with the profile of each actor only due to get bigger in the years ahead.
Hire A Director, Trust Their Vision, And Get Out Of The Way
Anytime hundreds of millions of dollars are spent, there will be more suits involved in making decisions. Perhaps Trank and Fox could’ve been better at finding the compromise that so many filmmakers and studios do when making tentpole movies. In the case of “Fantastic Four,” one really wonders how many people at Fox agreed on the direction they were taking the movie.
"I’m a huge David Cronenberg fan, and I always viewed Fantastic Four and the kind of weirdness that happens to these characters and how they’re transformed to really fall in line more with a Cronenberg-ian science fiction tale of something horrible happening to your body and [it] transforming out of control," director Josh Trank said in the run-up to the release of his film, later adding: “I just kinda jumped to ‘body horror’ in my head. ‘Chronicle’ is about the evolution and strengthening of unique powers. This movie is really viewing them as a curse.”
Whatever notes of sci-fi body horror Trank may have been looking to put into his movie are completely lost in the final result. The movie is scotch-taped together with a rushed disjointedness that gives some weight to those rumors of the director being left out of editing room.
At some point along the way, it seems that Fox panicked at the idea of taking a risk with “Fantastic Four,” and then veered towards making a far more traditional film. At the same time, they were reportedly cutting three big action sequences presumably as a cost-saving measure. These are the necessary actions the suits take to make sure they keep their jobs if the film underperforms, but they wound up mangling things even further, and driving the director to the brink rather than problem solving in a manner to benefit everyone involved. If Fox does go ahead with “Fantastic Four 2,” they need to hire a filmmaker, commit to the vision they bring to the table, give them the resources they need, and then get out of their way. And Fox doesn’t need to look much further than their own "Planet Of The Apes" movies which not only were massively successfully, but allowed Rupert Wyatt and Matt Reeves to shine and put their stamp on the material.
How “Fantastic Four 2” Can Still Work
One of the few smart choices Fox made was to not connect “Fantastic Four” directly to the X-Men, nor leave a big cliffhanger ending that needs to be resolved by a follow-up. Should they keep the cast and move forward with “Fantastic Four 2,” they don’t need to reboot anything, but rather, it would be something more akin to a soft restart. Changes to the dour aesthetic can be made without being too jarring, the story can refer to the events in this film, but easily move on, and again, by keeping the same cast, Fox can steer the entire ship in a new direction from “Fantastic Four” without having to toss everything out and starting over. Both financially and creatively, it’s a sensible approach.
However, all of this is predicated on Fox learning from their mistakes. It will require the studio, who spent much of the year in damage control mode, to stop pointing fingers, and look at what happened on their end to allow “Fantastic Four” to turn out they way it did. That’s not to absolve Trank of any responsibility of his role in what played out, but at the end of the day, it’s Fox’s money and decision making that drove the enterprise. It will also mean a very delicate PR dance in the weeks, months, and even years ahead as Fox needs to really sell fanboys and audiences that they finally found the right formula. The sequel will require the sort of introspection that Hollywood isn’t often good at doing, but it’s the only way “Fantastic Four” will live to fight another day, at least under Fox’s roof.
Or, they could, you know, do the smart thing and sell the rights back at Marvel where they can actually make a movie with love and care for the source material instead of doing a rushed, cynical rights-grab. Then again Fox has proved to be a stubborn bunch, in which they\’ll pull another steaming pile of feces before the rights revert again; hopefully though the shareholders will use common sense and stop Fox before they do so.
Marvel will get the Fantastic Four rights back and to do MCU\’s Fantastic Four in which the origin will be in the prologue scene prior to the opening credits.
The cast stays but any and all references to this film need to be ignored entirely. Treat it not like a sequel, not like another reboot but just a separate film that potentially wouldn\’t be complete turds. No grimdark edginess, no pants-less Thing, a Dr. Doom that isn\’t just an insane hipster who got stranded somewhere, no ridiculous and needless time jumps to try and excuse flimsy story building. Don\’t re-invent the wheel just because no one else has bothered to try before – just run with the groundwork and if something needs altering, let it happen in a natural fashion. Seriously, this film shouldn\’t have been the steaming load of disappointment that it turned out to be.
JASON, you lost all credit with me when you said, "well-made film like The Lone Ranger".
FF was a very bad movie. I hope they do make a FF2. I hope they do it well. If so, i\’d be happy to see it. I hope we get x-men and spidey is the film as well.
Remember that 20th Century Fox is a business. It would be a bad business decision to make a sequel to a film that they\’re probably going to lose at least $60M on. Plus they\’ll have to convince shareholders that they could make a sequel that can overcome the negative reception of this film and the general brand toxicity of the Fantastic Four now.
Can\’t compare this movie and Ant-Man at all. They are like night and day. Same goes for Iron Man 2 on a lesser extent.
After reading all the horrible reviews about Fantastic 4, I was expecting an absolute trainwreck!! I won\’t say the movie was perfect, I am slightly confused as to why at lest 10 items from the Previews didn\’t even exist in the final cut, it almost makes me wonder if Trank was right, they cut out a lot of his story. You have to understand Guardians of the Galaxy (which I loved) didn\’t exactly follow the comics either, and that got great reviews.. Now I know it\’s not just the Veering off from the comic people have an issue with, it\’s the timing and a large gap in the story, I want more prep between when they just got their powers, to when they mastered them and became heroes. After all that… I actually enjoyed the movie, I went into Jupiter ascending knowing it got the worst reviews ever, and took a chance, hoping to be surprised, but I wasn\’t, Jupiter ascending sucked… But Fantastic four was better than the Wrap it\’s getting, but it feels like it\’s missing about 20-30 min, and every Marvel movie NEEDS an Easter egg after the credits… I wasted 10 min. Hoping for a little snippet.
Give it back to Marvel so it can be cast, written, directed, and produced correctly. Marvel could have them appear in the current universe after being missing since the 1950\’s or 60\’s, when they got sucked into another dimension/universe shortly after they got their powers. No origin story needed, just hit the ground running, sticking to and honoring the source material – unlike this wasted effort does.
Anything but another reboot and origin story. The Hulk made a decent attempt (before ceding back to Marvel). Movie 1 an over ambitious mess. Movie 2 a tighter recast B-movie without rebooting the story! The Bond movies are the best example of picking up from lesser entries without the need to restart the story each time.
Perhaps Fox should have the FF in a great and very cool guest role in the next X-men movie…if at all possible. Let all those happy X-Men fans see the FF being done right, if only as a guest role, then move to the sequel. Right now, no one, no where, no how wants to see a sequel to the mess the Fox frakked and Josh tranked.
Fox should just accept people want to see a Marvel made Fantastic Four movie. Anything from Fox will be discarded as soon as the proper Marvel version comes out.
"It is hardly more mediocre or trite than Ant-Man or Iron Man 2 that were allowed to make money with blasse reviews. "
Ummmm…IM2 got a 72% on RT, and "A" on CinemaScore, and opened with $128MM. Ant-Man got a 79% on RT, an A- Cinemascore, and opened to $57MM. FF has the WORST Cinemascore of ANY studio movie in HISTORY (C-) per the Hollywood Reporter, and also has the lowest RT score ever for a CBM…and relative to budget, did worse than even Green Lantern or Elektra opening weekend. So…fail.
I hate to beat a dead horse but with Fox and Fantasic Four, 3 strikes and you\’re out. They should cut their losses and sell the rights back to Marvel like they did with Daredevil and Electra. FF isn\’t the X-Men at at this point it\’s just going to bea money pit for them, they need to cut their losses. Marvel could use the characters as more supporting characters in the up coming Infinity War movies.
I think its just damage control. Sony said the same thing about Spider-Man and then it took a hack of their servers to actually get them to work with Marvel Studios. Then again, the talks had begun beforehand so I can see the same exact thing happening. Don\’t apologize for this movie and once you agree with Marvel Studios/Disney about co-production pull the trigger. 2019, book it dano.
The last time I recall the hate machine was working all year long against a film was John Carter. That movie was great. So I guess maybe I should go see Fantastic Four, just in case.
The film is good for an origin story and if you don\’t expect anymore than that then it\’s a good film.
The actingwas great and their origin was more interesting than before.
I hope they make a sequel.
Fox can keep the rights and the characters for this franchise if they want to. I\’ll just be keeping my cash if that happens. So if there\’s a deal on the table by Marvel then they better take it since that\’s the only guaranteed sum they\’ll get at this point.
Make it animated market it to 8 year olds & hire a comic book writer like Mark Aid to write it.
I actually agree with this article. The film is terrible, there\’s no question about that. But, the cast was really good, and I\’d like to see them reprise their roles with a better script.
Fox didn\’t and doesn\’t care about making a good FF movie. They just wanted to make any FF movie before the deadline hit so they could keep the rights. FF doesn\’t sell itself. You have to make a good movie to get a box office draw for FF. it\’s far from being some sort of gravy train and it\’s time for Fox to move on. Sorry, Jason, but you\’re deluding yourself. Ant-Man was a good movie that got solid critic reviews and good moviegoer reviews. Iron Man 2 has its critics but was still a decent movie that a lot of people liked. Go on Rotten Tomatoes, Cinemascore, Flixtser, etc. and compare the numbers for FF. if you look at the reviews from BOTH critics and moviegoers, you\’ll see historically awful ratings on both fronts.
The overreaction to this movie is reaching hysteria levels. It is hardly more mediocre or trite than Ant-Man or Iron Man 2 that were allowed to make money with blasse reviews. Every once in a while a movie comes out and critics summer action fatigue explodes its pent-up hategasm all over it. Example:
"Whatever notes of sci-fi body horror Trank may have been looking to put into his movie are completely lost in the final result."
Nonsense. If you can\’t see body horror with Richards and Grimm, you didn\’t watch the movie.
Usually, this doesn\’t annoy me too much, but then a well-made film like The Lone Ranger gets it in the face because Johnny Depp played a Native American and the anger goggles came out.
It\’s a curious argument to say that this series is in a better position than Spider-Man. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 might\’ve made the least amount of money in the series but it still made over $700 million worldwide, which is nowhere near where Fantastic Four will land. I\’m not sure if they will give the rights back to Marvel but I would be shocked if they continued with a sequel in 2017.
Or. They can forget about Fantastic Four 2 entirely, and instead build plans for a much more exciting (at this time) Deadpool 2. Which, apparently, is what they are thinking about right now.