Fantastic Four: Hollywood Can't Seem To Get It Right 

For years, the Fantastic Four immodestly bore the title “The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine.” Introduced in 1961, the title ushered in the age of Marvel Comics, inaugurating the creative explosion of writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby, which has been compared in musical terms to John Lennon and Paul McCartney during the Beatles’ heyday.

All of that makes the rather tortured history of the franchise onscreen, especially given the current ascent of comicbook blockbusters, all the more perplexing — most recently with Fox’s reboot “Fantastic Four,” which comes eight years after the last live-action “Fantastic Four” effort, a sequel subtitled “Rise of the Silver Surfer.”

Not only has the newest project been bludgeoned by critics, but the director, Josh Trank, responded by implying that the studio, 20th Century Fox, was responsible for its failings. Whatever the underlying truth, for comicbook fans it raises the specter of the bad old days, when studios abused comics by refusing to take the source material seriously.

Granted, a lot has changed since then. “The Avengers” assembled and exploded, “Iron Man” took off, even “Guardians of the Galaxy” went into orbit. Yet while the Fantastic Four held its own against alien races like the Skrulls and the Kree, it has yet to win a battle with Hollywood.

So why hasn’t anybody been able to successfully tackle “Fantastic Four,” which was not only a groundbreaking comic — predating Spider-Man, the Hulk and a host of Marvel titles that followed — but arguably more enjoyable to read than most of them? For those reasons, it’s a question that rankles comicbook fans more than most, despite Marvel’s other cinematic triumphs.

Of course, the fact that Fox is distributing the movie speaks in part to the property’s complicated past, having been parceled off (along with X-Men and Spider-Man) during a period in the mid-1990s in which Marvel declared bankruptcy. Ill-conceived rights deals yielded a low-budget 1994 Roger Corman movie that was never released, and a 1978 Saturday-morning animated series that had to make do without the Human Torch, since the character had been separately optioned for a movie. The replacement, padding out the foursome: comic-relief sidekick H.E.R.B.I.E. the Robot, which, in terms of teeth-gnashing names in comicbook and genre circles, was an early precursor to Jar Jar Binks.

Notably, many of the perceived hurdles to adapting Fantastic Four have been overcome elsewhere. Both “X-Men” and “Avengers” demonstrated it was possible to do movies featuring super-powered teams, after comicbook-based projects devoted to relative loners like Batman and Superman. The characters in “X-Men” and “Avengers” also squabbled and dealt with personal issues, a hallmark of the Lee-Kirby collaboration, which as a consequence felt more real and relevant to young readers when their work took the industry by storm.

The Fantastic Four were also notable in that, unlike most superheroes, they didn’t bother with secret identities. Indeed, the fact that everyone knew who they were — and that they suffered occasional indignities and intrusions associated with fame — was a regular aspect of the stories, and a frequent source of humor. If ever a superhero group seemed well suited to the age of TMZ, it’s this one — not that you’d know it from the latest movie, which is heavily rooted in the quartet’s origins.

The obvious argument is that Marvel, since taking control of its own destiny, has simply done all this better, exhibiting a love for and respect toward the source material that was, historically, often lacking. The studio’s interlocking world, its Marvel universe, has become an organic entity that supports and buttresses even the lesser titles.

Even so, “X-Men” has managed to flourish without that umbrella. And Fantastic Four possessed a rich-enough array of ancillary characters that it should have had the heft to stand on its own.

In hindsight, the crucial breakdown might have come not so much with director Tim Story’s 2005 movie, which did just well enough at the box office to warrant a sequel, but that second film. Afforded the opportunity to incorporate the Silver Surfer and the Galactus saga — as good a comics arc as Marvel might have produced during that period — the filmmakers fumbled, compounding errors from the first film as opposed to cleaning them up and improving them.

So instead of the “Fantastic Four” movie that Marvel fans had long anticipated, they had to settle for another disappointment, followed by this eight-year wait to see a reboot that falls short, creatively speaking, for an entirely different list of reasons.

Some have spoken of “Fantastic Four” as a cursed property in terms of its screen life, but that gets at the “what” without really answering the “why.” What does seem clear is that barring an unforeseen outpouring of interest from those who can’t readily recite the Thing’s battle cry, the ship for this signature Marvel property appears to have sailed.

While comic books can — and frequently have — hit the reset button, exploring alternate scenarios and universes, when it comes to movie franchises that cost more than $100 million to produce, there are only so many bites at the apple or trips into orbit. Just ask Green Lantern. Because whatever the complicated mix of factors that has hobbled Fantastic Four, the bottom line is that Hollywood has once again made the “World’s Greatest Comic Magazine” look perfectly ordinary.

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What else can Fox Studios expect? When you have loyal comic fans that had been reading the “Fantastic Four” comic books since childhood, growing up accustomed to Human Torch as the blonde guy, when it came to casting the studio choose to go with Michael B. Jordan to play Human Torch so they can show diversity in race, on top of the fact that Fox chose to ignore millions of angry social network blasting of this miscast. Not to mention bringing in an one dimensional, pencil neck geek Mile Teller who has not star power to attract teen audience. They were doomed from the beginning. Perhaps Hollywood still doesn’t get it, miscast kills boxoffice. How about just going with all white cast for the remake of “Roots”?

It has nothing to do with the race of Johnny Storm. Fox can have the blondest and bluest eyed actor to be Johnny…with the same script, the movie will still be shit. The story was horrid. They made Dr Doom, one of the most compelling villain in Marvel and made him into an emo dickwad.

Samuel L. Jackson did just fine playing the traditionally White Nick Fury. The color of the characters doesn’t matter, the story does.

the Nick Fury of earth 616 (marvels normal comic timeline) was white. Nick Fury of the MCU which is based off of the Ultimate’s earth 1610 is pretty much Sam Jackson. Samuel L. Jackson originally didn’t give consent for Marvel Comics to base the appearance of Nick Fury after him. After contacting Marvel about this issue, they offered Jackson an opportunity to play Nick Fury in their planned movies, which led to his role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe

The films got a lot of problems a blonde johnny storm would not have solved. But a better script with this cast may have worked.

It’s Fox Studios that can’t get it right, not Hollywood. That’s why Fantastic 4 needs to go back to Marvel.

The Fantastic Four was one of the best written comic books out there. Unfortunately the studios have dumbed it down for the masses and made it politically correct. Let Marvel have the Fantastic Four back and let them incorporate it into their cinematic universe. I bet Marvel could release a Fantastic Four movie in two years and people would go see it. They would forget all about this ill conceived turd.

More like ‘FOX can’t seem to crack Fantastic Four movie’. There’s plenty of Hollywood, Marvel/Disney especially (as shown by the Fantastic Four-esque ensemble in the Incredibles), that could almost certainly do justice to it. It’s just that Fox has clearly and repeatedly shown that it is not one of the studios that’s capable of it.

Once Marvel gets the FF into the MCU, they should really think about dropping a few singles or doubles (i.e. cameos from the Thing and Human Torch in other character’s movies) as opposed to trying to hit a home run with yet another FF movie. I’d personally love to see them make an appearance in the BLACK PANTHER franchise.

It’s very very simple cgi thing to look like thing give him pants and make Sue and Johnny actually look like brother as sister eg. Blonde blue eyes. And if they can bring in the skrulls

Learn how to write a 3-act movie with a better villain who doesn’t disappear midway into the story and better character development overall! Write better dialogue, and maybe hire a talented A-list actor like Robert Downey, Jr., not afraid to take chances. Insert more redemptive content, less clichés.

Just what we need Robert Downey Jr in another’s superhero film? He is not the only actor in Hollywood dude.

Turn the characters over to Marvel Studios and watch them make a great Fantastic 4 movie like it’s easy. And it would be compared with the challenging characters they turned into successes: Iron Man, a b-level character nobody outside nerddom had heard about before the movie: Thor, a c-level character even more obscure than Iron Man. Captain America – that’ll never play overseas (it did). Guardians of the Galaxy – are they insane? Ant-Man – ditto. If all those characters can be made into successful movies, there’s no excuse for Fox falling on its face with a much easier group – basically, it’s The Incredibles (which is a riff on F4). How hard is that?

Feel kinda bad for the actors b/c it was a chance for some unknowns to show what they got. Fantastic Four never seemed to muster any real interest and that may be in large part to the fact that most of the audience probably had no clue who and what this group was about. With both the Avengers and X-Men you had two things going for them: 1) established well-known actors and 2) characters who had their own movies BEFORE they were introduced to the aud as a group. It’s just not possible to get across any individual characterizations of an ensemble cast for people to relate to when you’ve got maybe 90 minutes to do it. I’m afraid at this point, people are just over it and won’t buy another incarnation of this franchise anytime soon. I’d say, wait about 10 years when they’ll re-make every damn movie from this decade.

You are right Dorothy. Using well established Actors for the roles would correct. It would also match the ages of the comic book as well.

It’s because it was about 4 teenagers… No one over twenty is gonna take their misses to the cinema to watch 4 bratty teenagers.

You have a great point there. In the comic they were all adults, I think Johnnie just out of his teens way back

Uhh…here’s the solution…..Let Marvel have FF back and let them produce the movie. DUH!

So when would Marvel have the time to make another FF movie? They have no room in their phase 3, especially considering they tacked on another Spider-man movie….We have reached the point of comic book saturation! We do not need the generic fantastic four when we have the Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy, X-Men and upcoming Justice League. There is simply no room.

Yeah. It will be hilarious just watching Marvel Studios make it look easy. Which it would be compared with what they’ve done before.

I hope Hollywood stops trying to make this happen. The world doesn’t need more bad Fantastic Four movies.

The problem is simple: They keep giving it to directors who are ill-equipped to handle this concept, Tim Story had made small comedies. Trank had one low-budget indie that got some critical acclaim. Neither was ready to handle a nine-figure-budget VFX orgy. They need someone with at least some experience in large-scale films to tame this beast.

Well, Marvel have proved different a number of times. Of course, it wasn’t Trank level unexperienced, but Russos or even James Gunn aren’t that big names. And they are going even further with Jon Watts now for Spider-Man – he wasn’t critically acclaimed at all at the moment. But anyway, I do agree, that Trank is to blame here. Even if Fox did cut this movie differently than he intended to, it was totally his fault that entire concept and the all the characters got lost in totally uninteresting story.

2005 attempt at least had totally genuine cast for all the titular roles, and their ponential wasn’t wasted even though story lacked bone. This one… urgh.