Fantastic Four: The Reboot.

[Tomato]

It's come up in a few other threads, so we might as well divert those discussions to a thread they belong in. To kick things off:

...with Fox doing a "a much more grounded, gritty, realistic movie" for the reboot, which contradicts the nature of the comic (not to mention the freaking title)

This still kind of sums up my feelings on it. I have no real issues with Black Johnny (other than feeling like Sue should be black as well) my issues have to do with the nature of the reboot. Fantastic Four is about exactly that, the friggin FANTASTIC. I don't want to see a grounded, gritty FF movie, I want to see a movie where the FF takes down giant mole monsters or goes into alternate dimensions... or at the very least, giant city destroying robots like in the REAL FF movie.

[trebean]

I don't really have much issue with the no costume and Fantastic Four thing. I liked Millar's Ult Fantastic Four and it feels like they're gonna go the same way with this adaption, like not making the Fantastic Four known to public at first, being a government sponsored team, but I hope they keep classic Doom though.

[Starman]

I'm looking forward to Josh Trank's interpretation ... I like the actors and Millar's run on Ultimate Fantastic Four. As that Ultimate FF run proved, as long as you keep the basic personality traits and dynamic of the group intact, you can age them down and play with their backstory while maintaining fidelity to the original "classic" characters.

[crimsonquill]

I'm looking forward to the Fantastic Four reboot because of Josh Trank's vision of superheroes and the screenplay by Simon Kinberg (who blew our socks off with X-MEN:Days Of Future Past, which was his last film he wrote for FOX). It's looking like they are taking a more Ultimate Fantastic Four approach with the storyline by having the team (mostly students) being assembled under a government funded Think Tank with their powers being the result of an experiment gone wrong or sabotaged. The Thing being fully CGI like the Hulk is pretty much a given since visual effects can easily handle that with motion capture. I have NO problem with Johnny Storm being played by Michael B. Jordan (who did a great job in Chronicle) though making Sue Storm the same race would have made more logical sense being brother and sister but I have faith in Kinberg. I'm really hoping we finally get a Mr. Fantastic that really can show off his power and intelligence correctly on screen (no more stupid dancing scenes or just pointless stretching).

Victor Von Doom most likely will be played off as a visiting scientist to the project and being horribly disfigured by the experiment. FOX already knows that previous meddling with Doom's origin and being non-Latverian Doom was a huge failure among the comic fans so I doubt that Kinberg would allow them to mess that origin up again during the reboot.

As far as giant monsters, epic-size robots, and visits to other worldly dimensions.. all depends on the budget they are given and what special effects they can pull off in the given production timeframe.

- CQ

[HarryTrotter]

Any news on the casting,other than Johny?

[crimsonquill]

Any news on the casting,other than Johny?

Nothing that a quick trip to IMDB.com can't fix:

Kate Mara    ...   Sue Storm / The Invisible Woman
Miles Teller ... Reed Richards / Mr. Fantastic
Toby Kebbell ... Victor von Doom / Doctor Doom
Jamie Bell    ... Ben Grimm / The Thing
Michael B. Jordan ... Johnny Storm / The Human Torch
Tim Blake Nelson ... Harvey Elder
Reg E. Cathey ... Dr. Franklin Storm
Don Yesso    ... Pentagon General
Lance E. Nichols    ... D.C. General Official
Mary Rachel Dudley ... Mrs. Richards
Owen Judge ... Young Reed Richards
Jane Rumbaua ... Doctor
Evan Hannemann ... Young Ben Grimm
Marco St. John ... Military Official #2 area 57
Tim Bell ... Local Cop
Mike R. Moreau ... Military Tech
Ronnie Hooks ... Science Fair Judge

Just having Young Reed Richard, Young Ben Grimm, and Science Fair Judge among that cast list pretty much clarifies that we will see Young Richards, the super nerd, getting beat on by bullies and then saved by Young Ben, the tough kid, who decides to become his body guard in school. Reed then gets found by the goverment Think Tank after his school science fair project blows the minds of everyone watching. Johnny and Sue Storm are the kids of Franklin Storm who happens to be one of the lead scientists running the Think Tank. Just for those readers who never picked up the Ultimate Fantastic Four comic.  How much of their origin will be based on the classic story and/or on the Ultimate origin will depend on what works for the budget and the vision that Trank/Kinberg has in mind (Homage to the Fantastic Voyage where a small crew is sent into another dimention to get their powers? A interdimentional gateway that overloads and empowers the unlucky few nearest to the device? A crew put on a shuttle mission to study an unusual event in space?)

- CQ

[HarryTrotter]

^Im not sure about Dr Doom,guys.

[BWPS]

Yeah,  Fantastic Four from the comics isn't interesting enough for a movie, as we've seen. Gritty is an annoying buzzword but it's not necessarily a bad thing. I'm hopeful.

[Tomato]

I would counter that the only time we have seen a movie capture the spirit of the Fantastic Four was Incredibles, and that movie DID do very well.

[HarryTrotter]

Juliam McMahon was awessome as Dr Doom.
About reebot Im undecided.

I have to disagree with you on that one Spade.  He's a great actor, but for someone to play Doom, thay have to wear a mask (like Snakeeyes in the GI Joe movie) He like to show his face...a lot

But the man had charisma.Hes GOOD at playing villans.

[BentonGrey]

Holy freaking Hannah...this is one of the dumbest things I've ever heard.  As far as I'm concerned, you can't do much worse than adapting from the Ultimates, or as I think of them, a microcosom of everything that's wrong with modern comics.  Randomly race-changed characters, 'grim and gritty' buzzwords, wild deviation from the spirit of the originals...ugh, they couldn't have done more to create a movie that could interest me less if they had tried.  I hate this because the Fantastic Four are great characters, and they really deserve a good movie.  I had some hope for a reboot until I read about this disaster in the making.  How very, very sad.

[crimsonquill]

Holy freaking Hannah...this is one of the dumbest things I've ever heard.  As far as I'm concerned, you can't do much worse than adapting from the Ultimates, or as I think of them, a microcosom of everything that's wrong with modern comics.  Randomly race-changed characters, 'grim and gritty' buzzwords, wild deviation from the spirit of the originals...ugh, they couldn't have done more to create a movie that could interest me less if they had tried.  I hate this because the Fantastic Four are great characters, and they really deserve a good movie.  I had some hope for a reboot until I read about this disaster in the making.  How very, very sad.

Whoa! Whoa! I just said that it looks like they are adapting part of the Ultimate Fantastic Four as far as some childhood flashbacks and how the group comes together. I didn't say they were adapting everything much less their weird take on Doctor Doom (which is still a super powered version of Doom that was reconned in several story arcs later). The problem is FOX can't repeat the same origin, background, and story elements from the original two disaster films or folks will never even give the reboot a chance.

- CQ

[BentonGrey]

CQ, I was talking about the articles I read, which said pretty much exactly that.  Of course it's too early to tell, but nothing I'm hearing about this film sounds at all salvageable. 

Don't be silly, Fox could DEFINITELY repeat the same origin and such.  Look at the new Spider-Man films.  They screwed with his origin, but he story is still basically the same, and people gave them a chance.

[HarryTrotter]

People are crazy about superheroes lately,so yes they are gona watch it no matter what they do to origin stories.
But again Ultimate versions truly arent the best ones.

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

The Ultimates do have some good ideas though, and even the Marvel Universe films have used some ideas from them, they've just been careful to actually use the good ones.  We'll see how this one goes.

[Starman]

CQ, I was talking about the articles I read, which said pretty much exactly that.  Of course it's too early to tell, but nothing I'm hearing about this film sounds at all salvageable. 

Don't be silly, Fox could DEFINITELY repeat the same origin and such.  Look at the new Spider-Man films.  They screwed with his origin, but he story is still basically the same, and people gave them a chance.

BentonGrey, here's an excerpt from an interview with The Amazing Spider-Man director Marc Webb discussing the Ultimate comics influence on his films http://herocomplex.latimes.com/movies/spider-man-director-marc-webb-feels-a-responsiblity-to-reinvent-the-hero/:

GB: I noticed the commentary from some fans that, in the early photos released, Garfield is not "heroic" enough or perhaps bulky enough to be a hero. Those are clearly people who never saw Ditko's version of the character...

MW: Andrew went through an incredibly intense training. When you see the before and then see the after — he is not a weakling. He is a lithe character. We wanted to make it more about agility than this sort of Atlas-like power figure. He's not Superman. He was a unique figure in Marvel Comics and all of comics. He was this kid, too, and we want to keep that consistent even to some extent when the costume is on. I love a lot of the "Ultimate Spider-Man" artwork and story lines, there's a lot more of an adolescent, playful quality.  And I think that's a big part of Spider-Man universe and hasn't really been explored cinematically before.

He also goes on to say "Part of the joy of cinema [is that] you make the impossible look real. I wanted it to be more grounded and more realistic and that went for the emotion of the scenes, the physical action and wardrobe. It's less based in Steve Ditko world and probably closer visually and more influenced by "Ultimate Spider-Man" but it is also very much a world of our own devising."

BentonGrey, just out of curiosity, which Ultimate comics have you read? Like any comics, there are some really good runs (by writers like Mark Millar, Warren Ellis, Brian Michael Bendis, Nick Spencer and Jonathan Hickman) and terrible runs (Jeph Loeb).

[Podmark]

Can't say I have much interest in this reboot at this point (though I'm not much of an FF fan so it'd be tough to get me excited). Everything I've heard just sounds like they're trying to put this together too quickly and with a concept that's off for the FF.
Black Johnny doesn't necessarily bother me, but the writing and acting ultimately have to sell me. Non-black Sue is odd though.

That said I actually do like some of the ideas from the original Ultimate FF stories. The setup with the Think Tank, everyone being young, Susan's portrayal, I liked all those aspects. Taking inspiration from there seems like a good start to me.


I've got to echo Starman here, the Ultimate Comics carry a pretty wide variety of material.
Ultimate Spider-Man really was a more drawn out modern retelling of Spider-Man. Rarely a comic I'd can grim and gritty.
Ultimate X-Men was pretty similiar to other X-Men comics at the time from my memory.
Ultimates, the originals by Mark Millar was the epitome of super modern grim and gritty. This is usually the one that gets people's back up.
Ultimate FF, I seem to recall constantly reinvented itself, it's creative teams changed frequently.

That's all from the original stuff, I've only read sporadic stuff from later runs. But from there's certainly a collection garbage, un-noteworthy and good stuff from the various runs.

The Marvel movies have definitely been cherry picking from Ultimate content. Mostly the best or most usable stuff.