Despite harboring a fair amount of potential prior to release, it didn’t take long before Josh Trank’s Fantastic Four reboot began to unravel – and fast. Fending off reports about on-set conflict, script changes and a reduced budget, the film was ostensibly dead on arrival earlier this year and though it wasn’t necessarily unwatchable, it was a far cry from a heartfelt crack at Marvel’s First Family.
Such disappointment has resulted in a series of question marks starting to linger over the sequel, itself slated for a release in 2017. But what exactly went wrong? In an interview with IGN, Doctor Doom himself Toby Kebbell attempted to address the shortcomings, even going so far as to state that the “fans aren’t wrong” when it comes to the film being largely forgettable.
[zerg]It’s an interesting and frank stance to take over Fantastic Four, and we’ll surely gather a much more comprehensive picture of the troubled production as those involved begin to open up about their experiences. For now, here is Kebbell’s two cents on the reboot.
“I was disappointed, but the fans aren’t wrong. The fans want what they want to see and if they don’t get satisfaction, they let you know. I don’t know if I learned anything from [playing] Doom, apart from, perhaps, when I see something I don’t agree with, to voice that immediately. As an actor, you’re conscious that your career is at stake with each job, especially on these larger productions.
“A film like that comes out, and I’m being sent maybe four scripts in a week, and those scripts go to zero when it doesn’t come out successful, so that actively affects my career. I think it’s vitally important that if there’s a problem on set, that it’s voiced and we solve it there and I think that collaboration is very important. Not to say that didn’t happen on set, but the collaboration is vital and if we don’t do that, then we suffer.”
While Kebbell alludes to his career taking a hit in the wake of Fantastic Four, it is ultimately Josh Trank who looks to have been the scapegoat of such a critical and commercial dud, and it doesn’t take much to align Fox’s box office flop with the director’s removal from Disney’s Star Wars Anthology film.