Fantastic Four (August 7, 2015)

[Sunrider]

Evans as Torch was the best part of the previous FF movies, he stole the show. His jump to Captain America feels like a downgrade, playing such a wooden character.

[Vagrant]

New rumor probably not true though saying that major change in direction for the Fantastic Four film. If it were true would it be a case of them caving to the fan reaction over the casting? Poor work on the script? Or something else entirely? Personally they should just give the property up and let it go back to Marvel.

Despite having announced the main four cast members, and despite releasing a shortlist of actors for Dr. Doom, Bleeding Cool has just reported that according to their well-placed sources, Twentieth Century Fox has dumped Fantastic Four director Josh Trank and the script by Simon Kinberg and are actively looking for replacements for the cast. All a mere six months before they are due to shoot, for 2015 release. Fox has issued a firm denial to Slashfilm, as well as Badass Digest, but…this wouldn’t be the first time a studio lied to save face, let’s be honest.

[grantlogan]

Probably wont happen anytime soon but I would love if FF movie rights reverted back to Marvel. FF has such a rich sci-fi history, Marvel would have another hit on their hands.

[Dimmauk]

Evans as Torch was the best part of the previous FF movies, he stole the show. His jump to Captain America feels like a downgrade, playing such a wooden character.

I bet the new Capt America movie will change your mind.

[Abandon]

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertain...icle-1.1742957

[Blackice]

I'm on board for the Doctor Doom casting. He was awesome in RocknRolla.

[6souls]

A dark origin story

Kinberg also talked about the tone of director Josh Trank’s upcoming reboot of The Fantastic Four, and confirmed – perhaps unsurprisingly – that the new version will not be the lighthearted romp of the previous attempts to bring F4 to life, saying:

It’s a much more grounded, gritty, realistic movie than the last couple movies. If I had to say, the tone of it would be somewhere on the spectrum between ‘Spider-Man’ and ‘Chronicle.’ The other movies were even further on the spectrum of being goofy and fun than ‘Spider-Man.’

Kinberg clarified that he’s referring to Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man, and not Marc Webb’s. While Fantastic Four easily lends itself to the cartoony antics of director Tim Story’s previous films, the drama in those films was rubbery and forced.

Kinberg went on:

Josh Trank’s instincts are to be as realistic and grounded and real with this stuff as possible. In many ways I would say it’s definitely more of a drama than comedy.

The writer does acknowledge that the comic book version of F4 is routinely much lighter than the rest of the Marvel stable. Keeping the adventures of this superhero team “gritty” and “grounded” will be trickier than doing the same with a man who dresses up like a bat to fight crime, but the filmmakers appear to be trying their best to find a balance. According to Kinberg:

It’s still in the direction of ‘Spider-Man.’ It’s not like ‘Dark Knight.’ And even ‘Chronicle’ has a lot of fun in it. We’re treating this as the origin of the Fantastic Four so in future movies you’d have them on sort of splashier adventures to some extent but in this one we tried to ground the science as much as possible and make it feel like it could take place in our world before it cantilevers into other worlds.

The notion of a “grounded” Fantastic Four is in line with Josh Trank’s sensibilities as well as the assertions of star Kate Mara, the new Sue Storm. This “realism” does not always work – the attempt to ape Batman Begins with Sony’s The Amazing Spider-Man resulted in a sometimes off-putting tonal dissonance, something that even director Marc Webb acknowledged, and has stated that TASM2 will be a much bigger – and “less realistic” – ride. Expect more details on the new Fantastic Four as details become available.

http://screenrant.com/simon-kinberg-...c-four-reboot/
http://www.craveonline.com/film/arti...fantastic-four

[Sunrider]

I bet the new Capt America movie will change your mind.

The Winter Soldier was amazing, though I still think Evans was better in FF (and Sunshine).

[6souls]

A Coming of Age story, too

Continuing the current trend, 2015 will bring plenty of sequels, reboots and superhero movies occupying big box office slots, and Josh Trank’s Fantastic Four ticks two of those boxes. Starring an eclectic cast that includes Miles Teller (Footloose) as Reed Richards, Jamie Bell (Jumper) as Ben Grimm, Kate Mara (Transcendence) as Sue Storm and Michael B. Jordan (Fruitvale Station) as Johnny Storm, the Fantastic Four reboot was penned by Sherlock Holmes screenwriter Simon Kinberg, who has another high-profile superhero movie out this year.

Kinberg was in attendance at WonderCon over the weekend to promote the imminent release of X-Men: Days of Future Past, and described the nature of his Fantastic Four script and Trank’s intended approach as “grounded, gritty, [and] realistic” – being somewhere between Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man and Trank’s breakout hit Chronicle in terms of tone.

Now that all four cast members have been announced it’s clear that the Fantastic Four reboot will portray them as being much younger than they were in the last two movies. As in the Ultimate Fantastic Four universe, the origin story will take place when Reed, Ben, Sue and Johnny are all college-aged (which might be where the Spider-Man comparison comes from). Speaking to Den of Geek, Kinberg explained that the Fantastic Four aren’t quite finished growing up when the movie begins.

We’re definitely telling a younger story that the original films did. It depends on what books you look at. There are some, like the Ultimate books, that tell this story. So it is an origin story of the Fantastic Four, and it does follow them before they really know what a superhero is. They’re older than high school, but they’re not quite grown into the world. If anything, this is a coming of age story.

Kinberg also confirmed that filming on Fantastic Four is set to begin filming in Louisiana in two weeks, though he remained cagey when asked about specific plot details – such as how the team will end up obtaining their powers. With the Fantastic Four being so young the idea of them being sent out into space and bombarded with cosmic rays seems somewhat less plausible (even with plausibility adjusted for a comic book movie), and doesn’t quite fit with the idea of a grounded and realistic retelling.

Kinberg did drop one significant hint about their re-imagined origins:

There is archetypal imagery of how they get their powers, for sure, and it does involve some sort of scientific travel.

If not space travel, then perhaps inter-dimensional travel or teleportation? The latter seems more likely given the existing indications that the Fantastic Four reboot will draw on the Ultimate Universe for inspiration, since the Ultimate Fantastic Four acquire their powers after being caught in a malfunctioning teleportation experiment.

http://screenrant.com/fantastic-four...story-details/
http://www.denofgeek.us/movies/fanta...nd-story-hints

[6souls]

Tim Blake Nelson is
THE MOTHER FUCKING

Spoiler: show

After a few delays along the road to production, Twentieth Century Fox’s Fantastic Four reboot will begin filming in Louisiana this week with Miles Teller playing Reed Richards, Jamie Bell as Ben Grimm, Kate Mara as Sue Storm and Michael B. Jordan as Johnny Storm.

This new, younger version of Marvel’s first superhero team was assembled by Chronicle director Josh Trank, and the film has been described by screenwriter Simon Kinberg as a coming-of-age story that is tonally somewhere in between Chronicle and Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man movies. Though filming hasn’t started yet and details of the plot (aside from the fact that it’s an origin story) are currently unknown, Fantastic Four has already taken a lot of fire from comic book fans, largely due to the lead actors being younger, shorter or darker-skinned than the team members in the original comics.

British actor Toby Kebbell has been confirmed as the choice for the Fantastic Four‘s main nemesis, Doctor Doom, but the latest casting news reveals that there’s another supervillain waiting in the wings. THR reports that Tim Blake Nelson is currently in final negotiations to play an “eccentric and socially awkward scientist” called Harvey Elder.

Nelson is a brilliant character actor whose career has included many memorable roles, including Delmar O’Donnell in the Coen brothers’ O Brother, Where Art Thou, creepy prison warden Gideon in Minority Report and “Dr” Pendanski in the film adaptation of Louis Sachar’s Holes. Fantastic Four wouldn’t be his first outing in the Marvel multiverse, either, as he also played Samuel Sterns AKA The Leader in The Incredible Hulk. Of all the casting choices for the Fantastic Four reboot so far, Nelson as Harvey Elder would probably be the least controversial.

For those unfamiliar with the comics, Harvey Elder is better known as Mole Man (no, not that Moleman), a nuclear engineer and explorer who was shunned by the rest of society due to his diminutive, homely appearance and inability to get along with others. This eventually drove him underground, where he became the leader of a subterranean hive of creatures called the Moloids.

According to THR‘s sources, Nelson would only be playing Harvey Elder and not his supervillain alter ego, but the fact that he’s being included in the movie suggests that Fox may intend to set him up as the villain for a future sequel. Fantastic Four 2 already has a release date staked out for summer 2017, so it wouldn’t be surprising to see the groundwork for it being laid in next year’s reboot.

http://screenrant.com/fantastic-four...-blake-nelson/
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hea...l-talks-700318

[Qalbert]

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hea...ot-adds-702328

Reg E. Cathey has joined the cast of 20th Century Fox's The Fantastic Four reboot.

The actor, who also appears on "Banshee" and "House of Cards," will play Dr. Storm, the scientist father of Johnny Storm (Michael B. Jordan) and Sue Storm (Kate Mara).

Cathey, who is best known for his role as Norman Wilson on HBO's The Wire, will play Dr. Storm, the scientist father of Johnny Storm (Michael B. Jordan) and Sue Storm (Kate Mara).

The Marvel superhero film will serve as a reunion for Cathey and Jordan, as Jordan got his start on The Wire.

Miles Teller and Jamie Bell round out the adventuresome quartet that gains incredible superpowers. Josh Trank is directing the film, which is currently filming in Louisiana.

Cathey appears on both Cinemax's Banshee and Netflix's House of Cards, a series that also featured Mara.

[Qalbert]

http://www.denofgeek.us/movies/fanta...ic-four-reboot

The reference model for the new The Thing in Josh Trank's Fantastic Four movie has landed online...

Josh Trank and his team are currently hard at work on the big screen reboot of the Fantastic Four, which is set to arrive in cinemas next June. Thus far though, there's been very little from the production itself, once the dust had settled over the fan-splitting casting for the movie.

However, this is worth a look: it's a photo of The Thing from the new Fantastic Four movie. More to the point, it's the reference model for the character that's being used on the shoot.

Jamie Bell is playing The Thing/Ben Grimm in the new movie, incidentally.

The image came to light on the Twitter feed of Justified Films, although it's now been deleted. It has appeared pretty much everywhere else, though...

[Vagrant]

Spoiler: show

Spoilered in case anyone didn't already realize he was going to be part of the movie but first look hopefully pre-special effects wise.

[Delirium]

I fucking hate Fox so fucking much

Spoiler: show

"He's Victor Domashev, not Victor Von Doom in our story," Kebbel said. "And I'm sure I'll be sent to jail for telling you that... I'm a programmer; very anti-social programmer. And on blogging sites I'm 'Doom.'"

[Qalbert]

looooooooool

[grantlogan]

If Fox didnt want to try they couldve saved a lot of money by selling the rights back to Marvel.

[Vagrant]

Seriously this just gets more and more laughable with every bit of news that comes out about it.

[quannum]

http://cdn.ientry.com/sites/webprone...ything_200.jpg

[Krandor]

Hopefully this just bombs beyond all belief so Fox will give up the property so Marvel could do an Illuminati story down the line.

Fox is certainly trying to get there.

[Delirium]

Hopefully this just bombs beyond all belief so Fox will give up the property so Marvel could do an Illuminati story down the line.

Fox is certainly trying to get there.

Unless Fox feels FF isn't ever going to make them money, they would just put out crappy movies forever. I'm pretty sure FF and FF: Silver Surfer both made profits and they were terrible(except Silver Surfer and Johnny Storm). They would have to be complete failures like Ghost Rider and Punisher(both of which got two movies) or make no sense(Daredevil) to lose the rights.