'Fantastic Four' : Josh Trank

'Fantastic Four' : Josh Trank

Man, the Fantastic Four reboot just cannot catch a break. It’s been roundly criticized by various segments of the Internet population since it was first announced. To start, it was just general malaise about reboots (“Another origin story superhero film?” people said).

Then, there was the knee-jerk racist reaction to a black guy – Michael B. Jordan – being cast as Johnny Storm/The Human Torch (“No, no, it’s not that he’s black, it’s just…we don’t think his sister should be white!” people said).

 That was followed by reports of turmoil on the set and issues with director Josh Trank, which were bolstered by separate reports of reshoots. And to top it all off, people didn’t much appreciate the “dark, gritty” approach the film was taking to such bubbly and colorful science fiction material (especially not in this, the era of the Marvel superhero movie).

All that being said, it doesn’t come as much of a surprise that the film’s getting a critical drubbing the likes of which few superhero movies have ever received. Currently, it’s sitting at 10% positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes.

That’s 1% higher than Catwoman and exactly the same as the Daredevil spinoff Elektra. Our own Scott Mendelson calls the film a “tragic chore” – tragic because about a third of the movie works, but as a whole it’s just a “mess.”

So what happened here? Why, after two previous (failed) attempts to really kick this franchise off, is Fox apparently incapable of doing right by the Fantastic Four? Specifically, what happened with this reboot that – in the minds of many – sent it off the rails?

According to director Josh Trank, Fox happened. Which is to say, he blames studio interference for the movie we have today.

In a tweet that has since been deleted, Trank said the following (courtesy of Variety):

" A year ago I had a fantastic version of [Fantastic Four]. And it would’ve received great reviews. You’ll probably never see it. That’s reality though. "

Although Trank doesn’t explicitly lay the blame at Fox’s feet, the message here seems clear – he had a very different plan for the film before someone took his power away from him. I have yet to see the movie, so I don’t want to comment on how evident that is while watching it.

That said, some reviews have indicated that it almost feels like two separate pictures – one, a weird science fiction story, and the other, a halfhearted superhero story. Given Trank’s sensibilities and his work on the critically-acclaimed Chronicle, we can probably assume his cut of the film would’ve hewed closer to the science fiction weirdness.

Of course, we’ll never know how much Fox interfered, nor how good Trank’s version would’ve been, unless Fox releases his cut to the public. Which is certainly possible in some faraway future, considering we’ve seen a number of alternate cuts of films released over the years (the Donner cut of Superman II and Payback: Straight Up being two of the most high profile examples).  I just wouldn’t expect to see it on the initial Blu-ray.

Now the question becomes – will all these bad reviews hurt the movie’s box office? Will the fact that the director is already (basically) blaming his superiors for wrecking the movie motivate audiences to watch Mission: Impossible 5 instead? Yeah, probably.

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