2015’s Fantastic Four is destined to go down as one of the worst comic book movies of all time, if it hasn’t already, with its behind the scenes woes only adding to its notoriety. Infamously, though filmmakers usually choose, or have, to keep quiet when creatives differences occur with the studio, director Josh Trank blasted the released cut of the film on social media. With Trank denouncing his own movie, that was the final nail in the coffin for Fant4stic.Â
In an enlightening profile piece on the director, ahead of the release of his new film Capone – his first since FF – he admitted that he regrets writing that tweet. Though no direct quotes on his thoughts are used in the article, Polygon notes that, in hindsight, Trank came clean that his scathing words cost him the support of many of his collaborators on Fantastic Four as well as friends in the industry.
If you need to remind yourself of what the original tweet said, here it is:
“A year ago I had a fantastic version of this. And it would’ve received great reviews. You’ll probably never see it. That’s reality though.”
He might regret offending any of his colleagues with his tweet, but it seems that Trank has no such worries about how it negatively affected Fox – it’s estimated that it cost the studio $10 million on FF‘s opening weekend. While speaking to Polygon about how producers and execs would cede control from him on set once they lost faith in his vision, Trank stated that it felt like “being castrated.”
Likewise, it seems he doesn’t have much sympathy for the angry fans who hated his take on the material, remarking that the furore over his casting African-American actor Michael B. Jordan as Johnny Storm left him sleeping with a loaded gun.
At least the spectre of Fant4stic should be banished soon, as Marvel is working on bringing the Fantastic Four into the MCU. Hopefully, it’ll be third time’s a charm and they’ll get the characters right at last.
