I was excited slightly for the new Fox Fantastic Four movie when I heard that Jeremy Slater was writing it. See, Slater and I used to write for Chud.com back in the old days and he knows his stuff. He isn’t always the nicest guy, but he is passionate. Well, ever since he wrote it, the studio has passed it around to a million other writers to take passes at the script and that is always cause for worry.
Well, I was also happy to know that Josh Trank was directing the Fantastic Four movie since Chronicle was maybe one of the best superhero movies in a long time that was not based on a comic, but on original material. However, once the casting rumors started, I began to get leery again.
See, the casting is all for very young actors and people you wouldn’t connect with the roles they are playing. The movie is looking at casting The Human Torch as Michael B. Jordan. It is not really the fact that they are changing the race of the character as it is that it means they have to change his back story and history as well because of the change. I know people like to say that it shouldn’t matter if they change the back story, but I argue that if they do, why use The Fantastic Four to begin with? It is all about marketing and making money, that is why.
When movies become more about money than respecting the source material, you get Battleship.
The role of Reed Richards is possibly going to Miles Teller, an actor I absolutely love the hell out of (seriously, watch The Spectacular Now if you haven’t already), but he is in no way Reed Richards. Allison Williams as Sue Storm is also not my first choice, but anything is better than the idiot that is Jessica Alba.
Seriously?
I mean sure, he was great as Olaf the snowman in Frozen but come on… Yeah, that was sarcasm. Seriously, though, Gad already has a project coming up where he will play Sam Kinison (that is nice casting) and then plans to star in a big-screen Gilligan’s Island remake (hopefully as The Skipper and not Gilligan). But, as Ben Grimm? I don’t see it.
Honestly, can you see Josh Gad yelling “It’s Clobberin’ Time?”
This Fantastic Four movie is coming out in June 2015 where it will get slaughtered and buried by Avengers: Age of Ultron (May), Jurassic World (June), Terminator: Genesis (July) and Ant-Man (July). I really hope that Josh Trank can pull it off, but I have serious doubts at this point.
Source: Movies.com