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4 Reasons Why Fantastic Four Should Have Worked (And 4 Reasons It Didn’t)

Oh dear. Superhero movies have enjoyed unprecedented success in the past decade, forever changing the way Hollywood approaches blockbuster filmmaking, but the cracks are finally beginning to show. The fact that Avengers: Age of Ultron is now the sixth highest grossing movie of all-time should fly in the face of that, except that analysts and critics alike were shocked when Joss Whedon's sequel failed to match the success of its predecessor. Marvel also had another hit on their hands this year with Ant-Man, an atypical hero who few had heard of outside of comic book fandom, but the film still performed relatively poorly in comparison with the rest of the studio's output.

1) Iconic Characters

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The Fantastic Four have a poor track record on film. There’s no denying it.

After the first adaptation was canned before it could even reach cinemas, two more Fantastic Four movies were released to poor reviews and disappointing performances at the box office. Now that the latest reboot has also bombed, many critics have argued that the property is simply impossible to adapt, blaming an inherently unlikable quality in the characters themselves.

There are many reasons for the failure of Trank’s reboot, but the Fantastic Four themselves are not one of them, and it’s lazy journalism to suggest otherwise. As Marvel’s First Family, the Fantastic Four ushered in a new age of super heroics when they first appeared, paving the way for the company’s unique vision of flawed yet relatable heroes.

The Fantastic Four were the definitive dysfunctional family long before The Simpsons or Modern Family hit the scene and the team’s unique dynamic cemented their status as one of Marvel’s premiere teams of the past six decades. Pixar’s hit movie The Incredibles paid homage to the Fantastic Four, proving that family heroics can be hugely successful if the tone is handled right.

Don’t blame Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Human Torch or the Thing. Instead, think of them as the poor, helpless children caught up in the divorce between Josh Trank and Fox.