Fantastic 4 rumours (or "how different is too different?")

I agree with you Bob. I am one of those people who does not like it when they change a major part of a prominent characters background when they change their race. I also hate how I have to defend myself as not being a racist because of it. Just because you want characters to not change race doesn't make you a terrible person.

Luciano,

Well, they certainly got Luke's super-heroing outfit closer to the source than Bryan Singer did with Quicksilver, right?

Back to the topic at hand; what I'd like from a Fantastic Four movie is one that replicates the original comic book series.

It needn't be set in the Sixties, but it should give us a feeling of the  JFK "New Frontier" of space exploration, and take us on a grand adventure.

I want the relationships of the characters to be as they were envisioned by their creators, and I don't want Reed and Ben de-aged into twenty-somethings to fit some marketing demographic. Robert Downey, Jr. was 43 when Iron Man came out--his "advanced age" didn't seem to hurt that film's box office, did it? The deep friendship between Ben and Reed means more when it's the product of so many years duration.

I want a Doctor Doom who is evil personified, but who at heart thinks he is doing the right thing. He should have a sense of nobility befitting the sovereign of a nation, but also the cruelty of a base tyrant. He is Reed's equal intellectually, but his arrogance will not allow him to admit that, and so it will defeat him every time. Victor Von Doom is the ultimate Marvel villain, as conflicted as the "heroes with flaws" that Stan Lee & Jack Kirby created all those years ago. He is not a preening, snarky, evil businessman looking to increase his company's stock value.

I want actors cast for all the parts who fit the personalties and physical characteristics as established in the books. For instance, Chris Evans was good as Johnny, but what he was given to play was kind of Johnny's teen-age brashness in an adult, and some of it came off oddly. If they are telling the origin, he needs to be in his very early twenties at the oldest. Reed should be the smartest guy in any room, and decisive in his leadership. Granted, it was his mistake that leads to the cosmic ray accident that creates the team, but he quickly realized that good could come of it, and for years tried to help Ben return to normal to atone for that oversight. As this is a "family" if Reed is the father figure, Sue is the mother, and every bit his equal in the group dynamic. In the books, it took a little while for Stan & Jack to break away from using her as a "damsel in distress", but she was always the heart of the team. Ben Grimm accepts his condition with an outward good humour, but there should be a sense of melancholy underneath, which is what makes the "Beauty and the Beast" aspect of his relationship with Alicia Masters so poignant.

Finally, when I look up at the screen, I want to see the Lee/Kirby Fantastic Four; I don't want a body-builder or 6'6'' pro wrestler as Reed, a sex-kitten as Sue, a cartoonish or oafish Ben, nor a "skater boy" Johnny, so for me it is not simply the ethnicity of these characters that needs to be faithful to the source, but it obviously extends to the race of these characters as established by their creators. While I grasp the under-representation of minorties of all types in the comics of this period, Stan and Jack did make an effort to populate the Marvel Universe with background and supporting characters of various races. The Black Panther would be introduced only four years into the FF run; a pretty bold move, considering that we were in an America where many areas of the South were still dealing with segregated schools, and the national Voting Rights Act had just been passed. I also understand the notion that nothing in the "hot-heated teenager" description of Johnny precludes anyone from playing him (including a woman!), as well as the passion of those who want a cinematic comics universe that more closely resembles the real world, but wouldn't that function be better served by including the Panther into the FF films as quickly as possible, rather than usurping the long-established identity and history of Johnny Storm? Many of the people who see no issue with the casting of Michael B. Jordan as Johnny also have no emotional attachment to the character or the series, so though their hearts and minds are in the right place, the change engenders no compromise from a previously-held position. For those of us who want a film of the series we love as it was written, it is not that we are "anti" anything nor anyone, except what seems a needless change for the sake of change.

In the past year, as the Talking Comics un-official historian, you've heard me rail about infidelities to the source material on numerous comic book projects, let alone some films that let me down in that regard. But here's the thing for me folks; Hollywood changes everything! They cut chapters from novels, remove characters entirely, reverse unhappy endings, and generally consider themselves more clever by half than the original creators. When it arrives in theatres, the Fantastic Four film will be a product of that system, and it will remain to be seen as to what damage and/or improvement those changes impart, and how the various segments of the audience react.

Amen, "Pro", amen!

I think it's a "How do I make this mine?" thing; a screenwriter or director wants to leave his thumbprint on the project, but as you say, some changes leave a smoldering wreck of the original, where subtle re-jiggerings should have been the way to go. The ajdustments to the Watchmnen finale, Tony Stark in the Gulf War theatre instead of Vietnam,  or the mostly-seamless integration of Marvel cinematic threads by scripters Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely into Joe Johnston's Captain America are all fine examples of how this can be done well, where the two previous Fox Fantastic Four efforts are so mangled that between them there are only about 45 minutes of the "real" Fantastic Four depicted! Frankly, the ultra-cheap (and never released) Roger Corman/Oley Sassone film from 1994 has so much more of the heart of the Lee/Kirby original that for me it overcomes its obvious budgetary limitations!

Sadly, an original property such as Hancock, which had an interesting premise and good execution, sank like a stone at the box office after a strong opening despite decent reviews. Studios prefer "brand name recognition", even if they don't respect the "brand name". Marvel Studios is quite the exception to this, but even they are not immune, as witness the Mandarin in Iron Man 3!

"Pro",

Before reading the article, I was trying to wrap my head around some of Ms. Rossum's IMDB listing:

"Christine".....Phantom of the Opera
"Audrey".....The Audrey Hepburn Story
DR. DOOM.....THE FANTASTIC FOUR

Yep, that makes sense!

As it turns out, she isn't up for that part, but for Sue, along with Kate Mara.

It seems that Fox is going "young" with the cast, with everyone under thirty, hoping to capture the "youth market". I think that they're missing out--maybe Fox should go "all in" on the casting, making sure to hit every demographic:

Betty White.....Irene "Reedy" Richards
Rosie Perez....Benjamina "Ben" Grimm
Zoe Saldana...Joanna Storm
Jet Li......Sui Storm
Emmy Rossum....Victoria Von Doom

I've gender-, race-, and/or age-swapped everyone, so I'm certainly playing fair!

I've also just looked at my watch, and I think for Fox Studios, Mark Millar, and Josh Trank... "It's clobberin' time!"

Cap,

I assume that you mean after they re-re-boot from this Josh Trank one ?

Not that it's news to anyone who's listened to our show, but I feel that despite its obvious budgetary limitations, the unreleased Roger Corman/Oley Sassone Fantastic Four is much closer to the genuine article than anything Fox has done, or is likely to do in the future.



I know how cheesy it looks, but the full-length feature was made for under a million dollars in production costs, but with a tremendous amount of heart! When the new "Faux-tastic Four" movie opens, I'll be at home watching this instead...and enjoying the heck out of it in a completely genuine and non-ironic way, too!