Well, we made it halfway through the 2010's without a "Batman & Robin", and now we've got one. Trank broke the lucky streak. That's how it's gonna go down in cinema history, mark my words. Trying to think what the 2000's "Batman & Robin", was...hmm...I'll go with "Catwoman". "Elektra", was bad, but it still has a teensy fandom, but no one likes "Catwoman".
I'm not sure if Fantastic Four and Batman and Robin are comparable... Fantastic Four was a good concept that got fumbled somewhere in execution. Batman and Robin was a horrid concept that was flawlessly executed.
Incidentally, if anyone wants an antidote, Hickman currently writes a mean Doom in New Avengers (#24+) and then Secret Wars. I'm just catching up on it. I have my issues with him story- and storytelling-wise, but his dialogue is almost always excellent, and he so gets Doom.
Funny, but I think that this wasn't a case of Trank being constrained into failure. I think Trank had some kind of personal issues/breakdown and the constraints were put in to keep the film from becoming an even more expensive fiasco. Consider: in the trailer, we saw parts of action sequences that aren't in the film. These scenes were shot and much of their effects work complete. That means the plug was pulled AFTER these sequences were in process. Or, perhaps, they were complete but weren't good enough/didn't work for the finished film. Also, Trank was dropped as director of a Star Wars anthology film WELL BEFORE the film's release. Someone at Lucasfilm didn't like what they heard coming out of the FF production. Then there are the reports of Trank's behavior during filming: trashing a house rented by the production, bad relationships with the actors, his isolation from the cast and crew. Worst of all, Trank didn't deliver a complete film. The studio had to call in outside help for reshoots and editing. I can't be certain, but the signs point to Trank collapsing either because of stress or personal issues.
Yeah, yeah, I kind of agree, but the real joke of the skit is that Marvel couldn't get their properties back easier if they'd planned it.
If you're talking the base concept of the Fantastic Four, which is at heart "family," then you're right. If you mean the concept for this film was good, well . . . no it wasn't. As I've said before, this flick was doomed (no pun intended) from the very beginning. Every pre-release bit of information that came out only confirmed it. The production had no idea who these characters are or should be. They fucked up the family dynamic right from the get-go. The relationship between Doom and Reed Richards was completely wrong. They apparently relied on the craptacular "Ultimates" version of the FF and not the real thing. It was obvious that Trank wasn't actually interested in making a Fantastic Four movie, but rather Chronicle II: Electric Boogaloo.
Well, we can have different opinions about that. I could kinda see what they were going for, and I thought there were some good ideas there. With some better direction of the performances, the restoration of a couple of action set pieces, and a coherent, satisfying third act, this could've been a pretty good film. And it's not hard to see since the first 30-45 minutes are actually pretty good. As I often point out to those who rail against comic book movies for not respecting the source material: a successful comic book might have 50,000 readers; a successful action movie will get 5 million viewers on opening weekend. Most of those viewers don't read--indeed, many of them have never seen--the comic book source material. *I'm* a pretty avid comic reader, and I haven't read Fantastic Four since I was a kid. For 99% of audiences, then, your objections simply don't matter. If the movie gets good critical reviews and good word-of-mouth, it doesn't matter one iota that the film diverges from the source material. This film could've been completely different from the comics and, if it had been a good movie, it could still have been very successful. When you say it was obvious it was going to be doomed, what you really mean is that it was obvious that YOU weren't going to like it. And that's okay; you're entitled to your opinion.
I accept that movies are Elseworlds, and I came at the new FF as a radical Elseworld like "Batman: Red Rain", and for those first 45 minutes, they had me. I was going along with it. But then....
Yep. My experience exactly. And then it all goes progressively more wrong until it crosses the finish line sideways, in pieces, and on fire.
There's "not respecting the source material" (and if you don't, why are you interested in the property at all?) and then there's "ignoring the source material almost entirely." Option B is what this production did. Look at the "real" Marvel movies - Captain America, Iron Man, etc. Compared with the source material, they've actually gotten quite a bit wrong. But they have been successful in capturing the essential spirit of the comics, and that's why they've been hits. Fantastic Four has been a popular and well-selling comic book since the mid-1960s, recent cancellation for mercenary reasons notwithstanding. But Hollywood has been so far purely incapable of translating that to film. You could see from the very earliest glimpses that Trank's film wasn't going to be the one to break that trend.
I'd dispute that the film completely ignored the source material. What I saw was still very much the FF. Some comics properties translate better to modern films better than others. The original 60s FF is the epitome of Silver Age outlandishness and so is difficult to do seriously; see the prior two FF films, which were more faithful but completely forgettable.
Yes, but it's hard to say whether the new film failed because of its ideas or its execution. I tend to think the latter.
I don't know why people can't be honest and say that the FF just aren't that interesting or believable as characters. A guy with a stretchy body? Well, that's just silly, and the other three are mostly elements of other heroes already seen before.
As I said above, the FF is pretty much the height of Silver Age outlandishness. That said, I think it should be possible to make an engaging, interesting movie based on these characters. The Tim Story films, forgettable though they are, aren't unwatchable by any stretch (pardon the pun) and the Josh Trank film at least hints at an acceptably serious modern take. I suppose if all you knew of Batman was the 60s TV show, the prospect of a Batman movie wouldn't be very exciting. "Eh, he's a guy in gray tights, a mask, and a cape who runs around with a teenage boy fighting silly villains, how can that be an interesting movie?"
And yet a movie that had a talking racoon and a talking tree was able to kick ass at the box office. Guardians of the Galaxy proved that if done right ANY comic can be turned into a successful movie.
Ebert had a good take on this (slight paraphrase): "It's not what the movie is about that matters; it's how it is about it."
