Fantastic Four (2015)

Fant4stic
"We gave you six years and millions of dollars, and you gave us nothing." - Dr. Harvey Elder
Genre: Action Adventure Directed By: Josh Trank Produced By: Matthew Vaughn Simon Kinberg Gregory Goodman Hutch Parker Robert Kulzer Written By/Screenplay: Jeremy Slater Based On: Fantastic Four by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby Starring: Miles Teller Michael B. Jordan Kate Mara Jamie Bell Toby Kebbell Reg E. Cathey Tim Blake Nelson Dan Castellanta Cinematography: Matthew Jensen Distributed By: 20th Century Fox Release Date: August 4, 2015 (New York City) August 7, 2015 (United States) Runtime: 100 minutes Country: United States Language: English Budget: $120–155 million Box Office: $167.9 million Franchise: Fantastic Four Sequel: Untitled Fant4stic sequel (cancelled)

Fantastic Four (stylized as FANT4STIC) is a 2015 American superhero film based on the Marvel Comics superhero team of the same name. It is the third and final theatrical Fantastic Four film to be produced and distributed by 20th Century Fox and a reboot of the Fantastic Four film franchise. Directed by Josh Trank, who co-wrote the screenplay with Jeremy Slater and Simon Kinberg, Fantastic Four premiered at Williamsburg Cinemas in New York City on August 4, 2015, and was released on August 7 in the United States.

The film was panned by critics, with criticism aimed at the dark tone, direction, acting, editing, lack of humor, character development, pacing, writing, unfaithfulness to the source material, story, visuals and CGI though there was some praise for the musical score. It grossed $168 million worldwide against a production budget of $155 million, losing 20th Century Fox over $80 million, becoming a box office bomb. At the 36th Golden Raspberry Awards, it won several awards, including Worst Director and Worst Picture. Trank also voiced his displeasure with the final film, blaming the studio's interference.

It's later established that the universe this movie takes place in is Earth-15866.

Plot

Transported to an alternate universe, four young outsiders gain superhuman powers as they alter their physical form in shocking ways. Reed Richards becomes Mr. Fantastic, able to stretch and twist his body at will, while pal Ben Grimm gains immense strength as the Thing. Johnny Storm becomes the Human Torch, able to control and project fire, while his sister Sue becomes the Invisible Woman. Together, the team must harness their new abilities to prevent Doctor Doom from destroying the Earth.

Why It's Anything BUT Fant4stic

1. Just like how Sony did with The Amazing Spider-Man, the main problem with this movie is that it was only made so that Fox could keep the Fantastic Four film rights just like how they did with the X-Men and Deadpool films rights and not lose the rights to Marvel Studios, and it really shows.
   • Ironically, the 20th Century Fox acquisition by Disney resulted in Marvel regaining the rights to the Fantastic Four franchise anyway.
   • However, unlike The Amazing Spider-Man, the movie lacks any identity, personality, and quality (in terms of writing, directing, and acting).
2. Production hell: In the words of the actors and everyone who worked on this film, the production was extremely disastrous, which set the film's reputation in stone (See "Reception").
3. Executive Intervention: According to testimonies from a former film production worker, Fox hired Josh Trank just because of his fame in his film Chronicle, further claiming that Fox rushed to produce the film to compete against the MCU; furthermore, Fox almost completely scrapped the script that Trank, Jeremy Slater, and Simon Kinberg had written for the film because they deemed it "too expensive to produce".
   • Ironically, when Fox rejected the original script for being too expensive was $100 million, but ended up spending more than $150 million.
   • Besides that, Trank apparently wanted to make a "body horror" style movie, but Fox decided to modify it without his permission, resulting in a confusing movie clearly divided between the vision of the director and the studio. This causes the movie to be dark and family-friendly at the same time, which does not work out at all.
   • Trank himself seemed to be no better: Some sources claimed that he had an erratic behavior like when he bullied Kate Mara during filming.
4. It looks likes the plot and sequences really came straight from Zoom: Academy For Superheroes, and a good amount of the plot simply rehashed the first Storyverse film.
5. The movie also takes itself far too seriously, and is very dark with little-to-no funny, light-hearted and fun moments, which is a far cry from the comics, TV shows and even from the Storyverse movies. It aspires to become, to quote Trank himself, a "David Cronenberg style superhero movie". It does feature body horror akin to David Cronenberg's films and stars super-powered people but fails miserably in combining them due to the horror film theme not fitting well with the Fantastic Four original tone and characters.
   1. Now true, rebooting a media with a much more darker tone has been done before with previous media that came before Fantastic Four 2015 such as Sonic SatAM of the Sonic the Hedgehog series, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (As in the 2003 version that aired on Fox Kids) of the TMNT series, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow of the Castlevania series, The Legend of Spyro: A New Begging of the Spyro series, Batman Begins of the Batman series and the after-mention The Amazing Spider-Man of the Spider-Man series, but the key difference is, those were able to implement their dark moments really well and treats their target audience of adults with respect, and also (in the case with Sonic SatAM, TMNT 2003, The Legend of Spyro: A New Begging and The Amazing Spider-Man) still knew when to be light-hearted and funny, Fantastic Four 2015 meanwhile goes so dark that it makes it feel more like another Superhero Action Movie rather then something out of Marvel, a media that's known for being more light-hearted when compare to DC.
   2. Heck, even Logan, another Marvel Film that came out a year later in 2017, is both the third/final installment in the Wolverine trilogy and the tenth film in the X-Men Films series, and was far more darker in tone then Fantastic Four 2015 had more light-hearted/funny moments and still knew when to have fun with itself.
6. The movie seems as if it's ashamed of its source material that has an extremely poor grasp of it. For example:
   • The name "Fantastic Four" is never mentioned on-screen at all. They actually cut to black at the very end of the movie before the characters can even say it!
   • The Thing has a terrible character design: He doesn't wear pants like in his previous incarnations and also looks like a giant garbage dump mashed together, a piece of fried chicken or even a Hulk or a Shrek that has a bath in a pond of mud and, suddenly, the mud was very dry after hours in the Sun. It could reasonably be argued that even the Roger Corman and Storyverse versions look better than this one. The Thing has an abusive older brother named Jimmy in only the movie version, who has a pleasure in beating him up whenever Ben insults or ignores him as an annoyance. Jimmy also uses his brother's "It’s clobberin' time!" catchphrase from him, which is a bad excuse to be mature and dark compared to the Storyverse, where Ben got it from a toy he had as a child.
   • Doctor Doom is a terrible villain who does not even act like a maniac scientist. Rather, he acts like an elementary school bully. It's generally agreed that his Storyverse counterpart at least looks much more faithful to the comics. For example:
     • His presence as the main villain happens very late in the film, at the 1 hour and 14-minute mark (around 71 minutes).
     • His powers are just to kill people by frying them, and telekinesis.
     • He was left behind at the 45-minute mark, which means he was absent for half-an-hour of the film.
     • His development as a villain is rushed within 2 minutes before he goes on a murderous rampage.
     • He also has an awful character design when he becomes Doctor Doom, looking more like a melted toy put in a microwave and those lights look like that melted toy caused some serious radiation.
   • The Negative Zone is renamed as Planet Zero, a newly discovered planet in an alternate dimension which is just a plain mountainous terrain with small pools of green and lava-liquid which should be red, which strongly breaks physical and chemical laws, since lava should be red or blue if it exceeds 30.000 Cº, not green (and there is also no green color in something where the temperature is too hot), that has no lifeforms, flora or fauna. When Doom was living in this "planet", he thinks he would infused and survive by destroying Earth just to have some action scene in that movie even though there are more planets that probably have some form of life.
   • Sue Storm doesn't go to space with his brother, Reed, and Ben.
   • Ben Grimm himself is not even a musclebound man before he became the Thing, and is now a skinny flat one.
   • The Fantastic Four got their powers from Planet Zero freak test accident than cosmic rays from a spaceship.
   • Dr Franklin Storm is an elderly man than middle aged.
   • Dr Doom is now like a computer geek than a college student and often goes with the pre-transformed Fantastic Four in space.
   • As with the 2005 film, Doctor Doom's home country, Latveria doesn't get an appearance at all.
   • Dr. Doom got his powers from falling into the green vat on Planet Zero, instead of a freak lab accident in college.
     • As a result in the comics, Doom’s disfiguration had nothing to do with the experiment.
   • Reed and Sue act more like rivals than love interests, coming off as Sue pushing the guilt trip enough for Reed to turn anti-hero rather than a hero.
7. The characters are incredibly unlikable and dumb, including Reed Richards' school teacher and Ben Grimm's brother, Jimmy.
   • Also, the only reason they go into the teleportation machine that mutates them is because they wanted fame. Reed Richards even outright says his only motivation is fame.
8. Most of the film is just boring conversations in rooms with the lights turned off.
9. Some of the dialogue is laughable and somewhat boringly dull.
10. Similar to Man of Steel, this movie uses a rather dull and washed-out color palette, which heavily goes against that of the original comics.
    • However, the former had some color and beautiful cinematography, while this has neither of those with boring stuff to come through.
11. There's an error in one scene where Reed's file on Ben lists his birth date as 1986. However, the beginning of the film, which shows both Reed and Ben at around 10 years old, is set in 2007.
12. Planet Zero doesn't even look that impressive and original in which is just a poor replacement for the Negative Zone, and that "planet" looks more like the world of hell than a real planet, even the planet Venus and Mars really make it obvious these are planets.
13. The movie climax is the cookie-cutter "Beam into the sky that creates a portal" fight.
14. Choppy CGI and special effects, especially on the Human Torch and the Thing.
15. Abysmal editing, with shots, either going slow or cutting out and moving to the next shot.
16. The plot is predictable:
    • The Fantastic Four get their powers, Victor Von Doom is the bad guy, they have a mediocre fight at the climax and they save the day. That's it, that's all that happens.
17. Horrible and unenthusiastic acting and bad casting choices, even from the young and talented four main actors. It also has no real direction. For example:
    • Jamie Bell was miscast as The Thing/Ben Grimm, who was supposed to be a musclebound man.
    • Michael B. Jordan was also miscast and blackwashed as Johnny Storm, which makes no sense since his sister Sue Storm was still played by a white actress and can count as whitewashing. Thankfully, Jordan redeemed himself 3 months later with Creed (which came out the same year as the movie).
    • Miles Teller's casting as Reed Richards was also criticized, since he looked and sounded like a teenager (since it's inspired from the Ultimate version of him), unlike the previous films where he actually acted mature and looked like an adult.
18. Unlike the 2005 film of the same name and its 2007 sequel, the four main characters have no real chemistry whatsoever. No bond unites them, not even friendship, even though this is a film about a family of superheroes.
    • In one scene, when Sue and Johnny Storm do talk to each other, it's just relatively brief. Another example is in a scene when Reed and Sue (who are a married couple in the comics) sit down and talk, and it's not even convincing. The only moment where there is any real chemistry between the four is in the Chinese lunch scene. However, even then they're not talking to each other.
19. It still has one of the main problems with the Storyverse films which is that the characters are stuck around on Earth too much and not in cosmic adventures like in the comics. These characters got their powers in a cosmic storm during a trip to outer space, so they wouldn’t just hang around on Earth as they do in the movies.
20. Terrible attempts to make the film dark and mature which only makes it dull and completely soulless.
21. There is no real character development or arcs whatsoever.
22. This movie has only two action scenes, one of which is after the team received powers and 1 year later they started fighting off bad people, but sadly that's not in focus and there is the other one where the Fantastic Four face off against Doctor Doom near the end of the movie, which is absolutely unacceptable for any superhero or action movie.
    • To make matters worse, three more action scenes were reportedly planned for the movie but were cut out days before production began. Why they were cut out is unknown, though it's possible they wanted to make the film family-friendly. Regardless, that is still unacceptable for a superhero or action movie (as mentioned above), since this is a PG-13 rated movie.
23. The storyline suffers from unbelievably bad pacing, lots of padding, and certain scenes that drag on. For example:
    • The first hour goes by slowly, making the movie feel longer than it actually is.
    • The main characters receive their powers within the first forty minutes and the first act progresses so slowly overall (taking up a huge chunk of the movie’s running time, of which there are 100 minutes), that the final act ends up moving at an incredibly fast pace.
24. Apparently, this film has Corruption in Test Screening, since in the words of fans who attended the test screenings of the films, the film had in total two versions, each one worse than the other, the first supposedly was recorded in the same way as Chronicle, and the second was the same as the final version but had more than 23 or 40 additional minutes.
25. False advertising: In all the promotional items that came out of the film, there are several things or scenes that do not even appear in the film, For example:
    • Many of the posters show the Fantastic Four in a heavily ravaged and devastated city implying some kind of action scene or sequence. However, such scene does not happen at all in the actual movie until the final act, although this one happens in Planet Zero and not on a city.
    • The tagline "Change is coming" doesn't really has an impact on the story.
    • The posters also have the line "From the studio that brought you X-Men: Days of Future Past" which was infinitely better than this sorry excuse for a Marvel superhero movie.
    • In the different trailers of the film, there are several scenes that do not even appear in the film. It could be argued that it's due to the large amount of meddling and production issues said scenes didn't made it to the final cut. Some examples are:
      • The Thing being dropped from a plane.
      • Sue crying for Johnny.
      • Reed being supervised by the army.
      • Reed having a romantic conversation with Sue.
      • Ben playing baseball.
      • The Thing being shot by the army.
      • Reed smashing a stone pillar.
      • The Thing about to hit Victor Von Doom / Dr. Doom/ Doom.
    • Additionally, in an interview conducted by the film's actors, and producers, they stated that they would thoroughly explore the love relationship between Reed and Sue, as was the case with the previous ones, none of this happens in the film.
26. Filler story. For example, there are several subplots in the first and second acts (like Ben Grimm's rivalry with his older brother, Johnny's connection to being a street racer, the Fantastic Four gripping and dealing with their newfound superpowers, etc.) being forgotten as soon as they are brought up.
27. No cameo from the late, great Stan Lee, unlike other pre-2019 Marvel movies. But Thankfully, he declined to make a cameo in this movie because even he thought this movie was horrible.
    • However, when he passed away 3 years after this movie was released, Trank regretted "letting him down" when he had received a personal letter from Lee asking him if he was okay.
28. Scenes that clearly show studio-mandated re-shoots, be it for trying to clear up/hasten the plot or appearance, most notably: Kate Mara's hair having a different color due to using a wig, as well as Miles Teller having facial hair in some scenes.
29. Horrible and unfinished ending where the Fantastic Four are creating their own base was nothing more than an attempt to set up a planned sequel, which was cancelled and removed due to flopping at the box office.
30. Bad release date: It was released a few weeks after another Marvel movie Ant-Man and a week after an action thriller movie, Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation. Thankfully, they did much better at the box office than this movie and were much better with the critics.
31. They turned the Thing into a complete joke. While he did have comedic moments in the Storyverse Fantastic Four movies, he was not dumb or clueless. In addition, there is a scene where he headbutts Reed. He would never hurt any of his friends for no reason and never did in any of the previous films as well as the comics. In general, he acts like a crybaby throughout most of the film. In one scene, he gets upset at Reed for trying to apologize and tells him they're no longer friends. He also doesn't have his trademark gruff voice, which Michael Chiklis perfected in the Storyverse films.
32. The same point can be said regarding the other Fantastic Four members. Sue and Reed Richards were definitely more serious in the previous films and even Johnny, for as much of a clown as he was, knew when to act serious, especially during action scenes. Here in this film, they act the total opposite: They act like teenagers who just got a new credit card and their first car, and in general, they don't take their powers seriously until very late in the film, when they have to fight Doctor Doom.
33. It was later revealed that Trank's dog died during production and he received criticism and death threats over the film's casting, so that can explain his bizarre behavior during production and how Fox had him disown this film.
    • Regardless, his behavior was still unacceptable when it comes to deciding to cast black actors for Johnny and Sue Storm/Human Torch and Invisible Woman to real-world demographics.
34. Because this film flopped at the box office, it led Trank to never direct superhero movies along with bigger-scale films ever after this film hurt his reputation. Even so, he even stated that his "fantastic" version of his cut doesn't exist because much of the sequences he planned were left unfilmed due to said studio interference and executive meddling.
35. Apart from Michael B. Jordan, Miles Teller and Toby Kebbell, this film ruined the reputations and careers of several of the actors who participated in it, as they have not been able to reactivate themselves in the film industry after the premiere of this film.
    • The most prominent being Josh Trank, who to date has only directed one film after this.
36. This film somewhat damaged Fox's reputation for making superhero films, compared to MCU, DCU and Sony.
    • Likewise, it furthermore damaged the Fantastic Four reputation in film, which resulted in many people believing that it would be impossible to make a great live-action Fantastic Four movie, outside of the previous two films.
37. Also, due to the negative reception and flopping at the box office, it killed 20th Century Fox's Fantastic Four franchise, until Fox themselves were brought by Disney 4 years after it came out, making the rights revert to Marvel Studios, and in July that year when they announced a new movie set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Redeeming Qualities

1. Good soundtrack by Phillip Glass and Marco Beltrami.
2. Although most of the acting is bad, there is some good acting and casting. For example:
   • Toby Kebbell somewhat sounds good as Doctor. Doom.
   • The late Reg E. Cathey did a good job as Dr. Franklin Storm, despite the character being racebended.
   • Kate Mara is okay as Sue Storm/Invisible Woman and could have saved it.
   • Dan Castellanta (Homer Simpson from The Simpsons and the titular character of Earthworm Jim) does an great job voicing the teacher.
3. As horrible as his character design is, the Thing's size is at least accurate to the comics (even more so than in the previous movies).
4. The scene where Doctor Doom goes on a murderous rampage in Area 57 manages to be genuinely horrifying, even if it's poorly executed.
5. The 2014 teaser trailer looks promising than the actual film it's self, and had potential to be a good reboot or remake, but if those scenes that were in the trailer were in the actual film (the scenes that were mentioned above), it could've been good and it would make more sense.
6. Despite being generic, the cinematography looks nice.
7. The 20th Century Fox logo at the beginning flashing the letter "F" is pretty interesting, similar to the X-Men films when it flash the letter "X" before the film starts.
8. The poster looks cool.

Reception

Critics Reaction

Fantastic Four was universally panned by critics, audiences and fans alike, who criticized its screenplay, directing, lack of humor, gloomy tone, visual effects, pacing, lack of dynamic or chemistry between the main characters, unfaithfulness to the source material, its false advertising in many of its advertisements, and as well as the acting for the characters, though the film’s soundtrack was praised. Trank himself has also voiced his displeasure with the final film, blaming studio interference, and has since disowned the film, and has been called "a good candidate for the worst movie of 2015". On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 9% based on 257 reviews, with a weighted average rating of 3.46/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Dull and downbeat, this Fantastic Four proves a woefully misguided attempt to translate a classic comic series without the humor, joy, or colorful thrills that made it great", making it one of the worst-rated superhero films on the site. It even became one of two winners (the other being Fifty Shades of Grey) of the 2015 Razzie Award for Worst Pictures of the Year. It has the worst Cinemascore and Rotten Tomatoes rating of any superhero movie ever made and is the worst-rated Marvel movie, even managing to score lower than Howard the Duck, which is widely regarded as one of the worst movies of all-time. The website Metacritic gave the film a weighted average score of 27 out of 100, based on 40 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". It received a "C–" rating from audiences surveyed by CinemaScore on a scale of A+ to F, which was referred to by Pamela McClintock of The Hollywood Reporter as "the worst grade that anyone can remember for a marquee superhero title made by a major Hollywood studio." On IMDb, the film holds a rating of 4.2/10 based on 155,029 votes, making it one of the lowest-rated superhero films on the site. Businessinsider.com placed the film 4th in their 25 worst superhero films of all-time list, with only Supergirl (1984), The Lone Ranger and Catwoman ranked higher and proven to be worse.

Chris Stuckmann gave this film an F.

Angry Joe gave a 2/10 and gave EPIC FAIL seal badges.

YouTuber Lukimus Prime gave the movie a 0/10 and has considered it his #1 most hated movie of all time he has ever seen in his Fantastic Four ranking video

Production Problems

The movie suffered from numerous production issues, ranging from director Trank (of Chronicle fame)'s unprofessional and bizarre behavior on the set (which also got him fired from directing the planned Boba Fett standalone Star Wars film for Disney) to Fox attempting to take over the movie from Trank in an attempt to salvage it via re-shoots. Also, many of the people who worked on the movie, including all of the actors who starred in the film as well as Trank himself, have since disowned it. In a deleted Twitter post (written just before the movie's release), Trank said that "A year ago, I had a fantastic version of this [movie] that would've received great reviews. You'll probably never see it. That's reality though". It was later revealed that Trank's dog died during production and he received criticism and death threats over the film's casting, so that can explain his bizarre behavior during production and how Fox had him disown this film.

Ironically, two years later, all the Fox studios and the entire Fox library were purchased by Disney for $52.4 billion (later upped to $71.3 billion after a bidding war with Comcast). The deal was finalized on March 20, 2019, ending Fox's 83-year run as a major movie studio and reducing it to a Disney label. It was later rebranded as the less iconic 20th Century Studios the following year. Executive Tom Rothman, who had green-lit this film as his final act before his 2012 exit, took a huge slice of the blame for the studio's demise.

Following the film's major critical and box office failure, Trank has since vowed to never direct a superhero film again and sought that his "fantastic" version of his cut didn't exist because of his planned sequences unfilmed. After Stan Lee's death three years later, Trank lamented that he had "let him down", even though after the film's release, he had received a personal letter from Lee asking him if he was okay. In 2020, Trank has admitted that much of the sequences he had planned had gone unfilmed, thus making a director's cut practically nonexistent. Later that year, Kate Mara admitted that her experience working on the film was "horrible". While she did not go into great detail, she implied that much of her discomfort came from questionable directions stating, "I think that speaking up is something that I think that we all probably learn it [sic] over and over again... I don’t regret doing it at all but do regret not having stood up for myself. I regret that for sure."

Box office and alleged manipulation of figures

The film's box office run didn't do much better. On its opening day, it made $11.3 million, which was lower than early tracking, and $25.6 million on its opening weekend, making it one of the (if not the most) lowest openings of all time for a big-budget superhero film. total it grossed $56.1 million in the U.S. and $111.9 million internationally for a total of $167.9 million, making it a box office bomb, however, according to sources close to Marvel or Disney, from fans who attended the test screenings and former workers on the film, FOX had lied in all the figures it gave to the media about the budget, as well as the loss of money the film suffered.

In 2014, months after Kebbell's interview about his role as Doom, the film's workers stated that the budget used, which was originally $90 million, had increased dramatically to $140 or $150 million due to misdirection, and Trank's misconduct, in 2015, following the premiere of Avengers: Age of Ultron, some fans who had attended some test screenings of the film, reported that the budget again increased to $180 or $190 million, due to changes. FOX eventually gave it, according to Marvel analyst testimonials, the movie was required to raise $460 or $500 million to break even and $700 million to be considered a good investment; In addition, those same analysts assured that due to the harsh re-filming as the promotion of the film, the loss of money reported by FOX was not $100 million but almost $220 million.

Canceled sequel, restructuring of FOX films and the purchase of Disney

In 2013, when the film was announced, several producers stated that the possibility of the film having a sequel was very high, but it was not until 2014 that FOX stated that the sequel was more than confirmed and that it was leaving. premiere in 2017, with a tentative date in November, so as not to compete with Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi or in May so as not to compete with War for the Planet of the Apes, at the same time several of the actors among them in different interviews who were willing to return, However, at the beginning of 2015, several people who work on the film confirmed through leaks that the film had extremely extensive plans where the Fantastic 4 were going to have a sequel, a third part, a spin-off, and several others. surprise appearances in the next X-Men movies, however, when the movie was released, and the reaction of the public and critics were extremely disastrous, it was learned through filtering s of people who worked on the production that the sequel and the plans with the X-Men were completely canceled, however, all the producers stated that the sequel would be released, but it was not until November that they openly declared that the sequel was canceled.

In addition to that, the leaks again attacked where it was known that the poor reception of the Four Fanatics affected the production and pre-production of several X-Men films, including X-Men: Apocalypse and X-Men: Dark Phoenix. At the same time, due to the failure of several projects that FOX was going to release in 2016 and 2017, they were canceled or frozen due to the millionaire loss suffered by the film.

In the year 2017 when Disney bought FOX, it was learned that all the plans that had been frozen, including the sequel and crossover with the X-Men, were canceled, and that from now on the MCU would work on a good movie of the first Marvel family.

Currently, Fantastic Four, which was destined to be the film that claims the first Marvel family, is considered not only by critics, but by the general public and fans of both Marvel and DC Comics, as one of the worst films based on in Comics, the worst adaptation based on Marvel characters, one of the worst superhero movies, one of the box office bombs of 2010, one of the worst movies of the 2010s and obviously in history.

Trivia

• Michael B. Jordan, who played Human Torch, would later portray N'Jadaka/Erik Killmonger in another Marvel movie, Black Panther, which is part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Unlike this film, both Black Panther and Jordan's performance as Killmonger received critical acclaim, with many considering him one of the best comic-book movie villains ever while also winning an MTV Movie Award for "Best Villain".
  • Chris Evans also portrayed Johnny Storm in the Tim Story films and later portrayed Captain America in the MCU.
• The relentlessly low quality of Fantastic Four movies has to do with Marvel making a licensing deal with German company Constantin in 1986 for any film adaptations of Fantastic Four and the rights to several associated characters (such as Doctor Doom, the Silver Surfer, and Galactus). This deal had no expiry date. However, the contract does require movies to actually be made. This is why the 1994 Roger Corman Fantastic 4 film was created (apparently the contract does not specify that films have to be released), and why Fox made any films using the license at all. Disney acquired the license when it purchased Fox, however, and now intends to incorporate the group into the MCU. The same deal also dealt with Marvel's long-running inability to use the X-Men characters in movies, as the rights to make X-Men films were also owned by Fox. Because of this, a new reboot for Fantastic Four is in development and will take place in the MCU. John Krasinski, who's been a fan favorite pick for Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic, revealed in an interview that he would be very interested in portraying the character, with Emily Blunt, who's been a fan favorite pick for Sue Storm-Richards/Invisible Woman as well as John Krasinski's wife, reportedly in talks of portraying the character. On December 10, 2020, it was announced that the film will be directed by Spider-Man: Homecoming and Far From Home director Jon Watts. Michael Chiklis, who played the Thing in the Tim Story films, expressed his interest in returning for the reboot. However Jon Watts exited the project.
• The original script was gonna have Dr Doom be the herald of Galactus, instead of the Silver Surfer.
• Victor Von Doom/Dr. Doom's last name was about to be changed to "Domashev", after the fan backlash.
• Writer Jeremy Slater would later write the equally-reviled straight-to-Netflix Death Note movie, the American adaptation based on the manga/anime of the same name, the tv series Umbrella Academy from Dark Horse Comics and the Marvel tv series Moon Knight. He also revealed that his initial Fantastic Four script is more close to the comics.
• Tommy Wiseau, director of the "so bad it's good" cult film, The Room, wanted to direct the sequel if it became a reality.
• Besides being considered to be one of the worst superhero films of all time, the film is also considered to be one of the worst films ever made.
• This was Trank's last film revolving around science fiction after he lost his job on directing a film set in the Star Wars universe, in favor of crime drama films like the Al Capone biopic, Capone along with developing a CIA tv show.
• In an obvious jab to this film, an issue of The Punisher released months before the movie came out showed fictionalized versions of Miles Teller, Jamie Bell, and Kate Mara getting violently killed off in an explosion.
• Dan Castellaneta, Reed's teacher's actor, is actually the voice actor behind none other than Homer Simpson from, The Simpsons, which 20th Century Fox themselves also own.

External links

• Fantastic Four at the Internet Movie Database
• Fantastic Four on Rotten Tomatoes

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