I Still Can’t Believe How Good the Cast Was in That Terrible ‘Fantastic Four’ Movie
Marvel’s previous attempt to adapt Jack Kirby’s comic book failed for many reasons, but the Fantastic Four writer thinks it’s Avengers to blame.
It’s been a week just as fantastic for The Fantastic Four: First Steps and its box office results that are currently reaching $240 million globally, with much more to be achieved in the upcoming weeks.
Apart from being Marvel’s best opener in years, the new movie is making things right for its source material by breaking a curse that previous Fantastic Four films fell victim to.
Out of several adaptations released throughout decades, 2015’s Fantastic Four has probably remained the most unfortunate one, becoming one of the lowest-grossing and lowest-rated movies in Marvel’s history, which also crushed all hopes for a long-discussed 2017 sequel.
Who Starred in 2015 ‘The Fantastic Four’?
The movie’s fate becomes all the way more depressing when it’s reminded that Fantastic Four had some of the biggest stars of the moment under its belt.
Josh Trank’s adaptation starred Miles Teller as Reed Richards aka Mister Fantastic, Kate Mara as Sue Storm aka Invisible Woman, Michael B. Jordan as Johnny Storm aka Human Torch and Jamie Bell as Ben Grimm aka The Thing.
Particularly, Jordan’s casting led to Trank receiving death threats and sleeping with a gun under his pillow after he made an attempt to explain that the decision to cast a Black actor had been due to the new diversity norms in Hollywood.
‘Fantastic Four’ Writer Blames His “Disconnect” With Director Josh Trank
- On Rotten Tomatoes, Fantastic Four holds scores of 9% and 18% from critics and audiences
- On IMDb, the movie is rated 4.3/10
While critics and Marvel fans did have many reasons to consider in regard to the movie’s total failure, Fantastic Four’s writer Jeremy Slater saw such an outcome as a result of his own fallout with the movie’s director Josh Trank.
“Ultimately, that was fundamentally the disconnect. Josh and I probably just saw different movies. I was more of an Avengers guy and, I don’t want to put words in his mouth, but he was more of a Batman Begins, like ultra-grounded, dark and gritty guy”, Slater once said in an interview with ComicBook.
Eventually, Fantastic Four turned out to be one of Marvel’s biggest financial catastrophes, causing a loss of around $100 million after grossing only $240 million in the box office.
