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. And then there's Fantastic Four. Anyone who holds even a passing interest in cinema is likely to have heard of how spectacularly the latest Fantastic Four movie failed at the box office this weekend. Scraping just $26 million domestically, the reboot has already become the biggest turkey of the year, confirming the worries that the majority of fans held long before the film was even released. While the negative press was admittedly warranted, things didn't have to turn out this way for Marvel's First Family. Join us as we take a look at 4 reasons why the Fantastic Four reboot should have worked, and 4 reasons why it all went wrong. 1) Iconic Characters 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. 2) Promising Director Chronicle was a hugely promising start for director Josh Trank. Not only did the film make ten times its original budget of $12 million at the box office, but the story of three young men struggling with their newfound abilities held uncanny parallels with the Fantastic Four, making Trank a seemingly perfect fit for Fox's reboot. Any worries that a small indie director like Trank wouldn't be able to cope with the pressures of blockbuster filmmaking seemed unfounded initially, as he was hardly the first to be pushed up to the big leagues so early on in their career. Gareth Edwards made the leap from Monsters to Godzilla fairly quickly and Colin Trevorrow just smashed every box office record with Jurassic World, which is even more impressive when you realize that this was only his second film. Hollywood studios regularly take chances on independent film makers now, so Trank's lack of experience alone should never have been an issue during production on the Fantastic Four reboot, providing that the producers gave him the support needed. 3) Fox's Impressive Track Record X-Men Origins: Wolverine was all kinds of bad, and X-Men: The Last Stand featured Vinnie Jones as the Juggernaut, so that was just destined to fail from day one, but aside from these misfires, Fox have had a decent track record in recent years. Let's not forget how instrumental the first X-Men film was in paving the way for comic book properties on the big screen, successfully capturing the essence of what made these mutant misfits so popular in the first place. Marvel may reign supreme for now and DC have their sights set on the top, but X-Men: Days of Future Past was a phenomenal success for the company and the promotional material released for Deadpool so far looks extremely promising. From hilarious promo spots that broke the fourth wall to that trailer, Deadpool looks set to finally do the Merc with a Mouth justice on the big screen. The studio has made mistakes in the past, but Fox have proven recently that they know how to appeal to their fan base... or so we thought. Even with all the negative press surrounding Fantastic Four prior to its debut, it seemed impossible that the studio would allow something that flawed and disjointed to be released under their name. Average maybe, but terrible? 4) Exciting New Interpretation Tim Story's adaptation of the Fantastic Four made a lot of money back in 2005, but it was also cheesy as hell. The Fantastic Four have always been a fun property in the comics, following the exploits of super-powered adventurers exploring new worlds, but it's as if Story had learnt nothing from the camp antics of Batman in the late 1990's. Hollywood seems intent on making everything darker these days, but in the case of the new Fantastic Four reboot, this actually made sense. It was vital that Fox steered their new movie away from the cheesefest that still lingered in audiences minds from before. Furthermore, the idea of making a superhero movie explicitly grounded in the science fiction genre would have set their reboot apart from the esteemed competition. Why reboot a property if you're just going to retread old ground anyway, right? Devising a new origin story based on the more modern Ultimate Fantastic Four comic would have been a stroke of genius if handled right and it sure as hell made more sense than 'cosmic rays.' So why did the Fantastic Four reboot fail?... 1) Directorial Issues Movies have bombed at the box office before, that's just how things work out sometimes, but few blockbuster releases have crashed and burned so spectacularly in the public domain. It's easy to place blame, but as any divorce lawyer will tell you, there are two sides to any dispute. Since Trank tweeted that he had made a "fantastic version" of the film that we would "probably never see," new information about his behaviour on set has surfaced on an almost daily basis. Rumours of Trank falling out with the cast and crew paint a picture of an indie director working out of his depth. Recent accusations have even suggested that Trank would hide away in his tent when not micromanaging performances or arguing with Fox executives over the direction of the film. While working on his debut movie Chronicle, Trank held control over almost every aspect of production. Detractors have surmised that the pressure of conforming to studio expectations on such a pivotal blockbuster movie was simply too much for the inexperienced filmmaker to handle. But that's just one side of the argument... 2) Studio Interference On the other hand, there's also a large amount of evidence suggesting that Fox Studios need to shoulder their own share of the blame. The same source that revealed the specifics of Trank's erratic behaviour on set also claimed that Fox had no real vision behind the Fantastic Four property, but that they were scared of losing the rights so powered ahead anyway, even thought they clearly weren't ready. By the time the studio realized that there issues with the movie, it was too late. Instead of providing Trank with the support he needed to complete the film, his opinions were supposedly discounted in favour of rushed last minutes rewrites of the final act. Whether these claims are true or not, it's obvious to anyone paying attention that last minute reshoots certainly had an impact on the quality of the final product. Scenes from the trailer that didn't make it into the official release lend credence to the claim that three key action set pieces were removed during these last minute changes and were are least partially responsible for the uneven tone of the film. And then there's the horrendous wig that Kate Mara wears intermittently throughout. Forget Dr. Doom. That's the real monster of this story. 3) Uneven Tone The reshoots dictated by Fox made the Fantastic Four feel like a disjointed mess of a movie at times, but it seems that the blame should be shared between both the studio and Trank himself, whose vision of the film just wasn't up to scratch. It makes perfect sense to modernize the Fantastic Four in order to compete with Marvel and DC's releases, but the end result was just too gloomy. Rather than veer completely away from Story's cheesy take on the franchise, Trank needed to inject some realism into the team's dynamics while still retaining the fun of the original source material. Early on in the films production, Trank discussed exploring the team's newly acquired powers from a different angle, showcasing the horror of what happens when our bodies change in a way beyond our control. Unfortunately, only glimpses of this David Cronenberg style body horror made its way into a final edit that languishes at a snail's pace for the first hour before rushing headlong into the anti-climactic ending. Science fiction? Horror? Superhero blockbuster? Unfortunately, neither Fox or Trank could combine these disparate elements into the cohesive whole that the Fantastic Four so sorely needed to be. 4) Negative Press Trank's explosive Tweet couldn't have been sent out at a worst time. Despite deleting the message the night before Fantastic Four was released, box office analysts estimate that the director's actions potentially cost Fox $10 million, and legal action may now be pursued. The negative press certainly impacted the movie's overall takings, but there were issues in the public's perception of the Fantastic Four long before Trank sent out his tweet. Many fans were against this reboot since day one, unfairly so given the lack of information they had, and this constant online trolling made both Trank and the studio feel like they had something to prove. When details such as Dr. Doom's name change and hacker background were revealed, the internet was quick to denounce the film. Unfortunately, the producers gave in to the trolls to appease them and it's likely that changes such as this would have contributed at least partly to the script's uneven tone. Trolls will interpret the failure of the Fantastic Four reboot as proof that their views were justified all along, despite the fact that they lacked evidence to support their claims until the film actually came out. What many won't take into account is that while 99% of the blame should deservedly be shared between Fox and Trank, the trolls should accept a small portion of the blame too. Few blockbusters of this magnitude have had to endure such extreme negativity from day one of production and not only did this contribute to the poor word of mouth reaction that the film received, but it even helped shape certain elements of the script itself. Tell us, who do you think should be blamed for the failure of the Fantastic Four reboot? Will anyone ever make a successful version of Marvel's First Family for the big screen? And should Marvel receive the rights back? Sound off in the comments section below.