These are my notes which I prepped for the Deep Dive on Episode 262 of the FilmFile podcast, taking a look at the different films adapting Marvel’s First Family to the screen (or to dodgy bootleg in one case), reproduced here.
CORMAN – The documentary Doomed: The Untold Story of Roger Corman’s Fantastic Four covers this in detail, and offers a good reflection on what could have been (much like the Death of Superman Lives documentary did for that often mocked project), and what we missed out on was a potentially perfect comic book movie.
The cast gave their all, the crew all tried their best, all unaware that nothing was going to be done to any great degree in post production, so effects would be cheap, editing sloppy, and overall production style ending up like a really bad sci-fi movie of the week.
The Thing make-up is spot on, and Doctor Doom is simply perfect. The story is pure FF. But this was only made to retain rights, and was never intended for release. Can be found on Youtube in all its cheap glory, and whilst an absolute mess to watch, you can see the sparks of potential that, if it had been taken seriously, it could have been.
TIM STORY – Coming from films such as Barbershop, Story felt like a strange choice for a blockbuster comic book movie – but the core of the FF is a story about a family unit, with all their bickering and love throughout, and so someone who can tackle a real-feel family dynamic is actually more important than someone who can create explosions! Story did have the US Taxi film under his belt, which whilst not a great film overall (it’s not as bad as many exclaim, but it is disposable), did showcase some of his action camerawork direction well.
The cast of the 4 are solid – Evans as Johnny and Chiklis as Ben being absolutely perfect, and capturing their dynamic wonderfully. Grufford and Alba are likable – even though the Sue Storm of this film is maybe a little too much like the (by that time) out of date almost sidelined damsel in distress figure that hadn’t been relevant in the comics since the Malice run in the 80s.
Doom (Julian McMahon) was entirely wrong, and there lies the weakest element of both films. In the first he isn’t anything like the Doom from the comics, and in the second he actually undermines the potential for the real story that should have been.
But the films looks great, and are pure comic book fun. The family dynamic works, and in the second the Surfer is just astonishing in depiction and portrayal (Doug Jones in form, Laurence Fishburne in voice). Shame about cloud Galactus though – but understandable given audience at that point may have balked at the idea of a giant guy dressed in purple.
JOSH TRANK – It is telling that a before this came out Trank distanced himself from it on social media as much as he could when he stated:
“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.” Trank deleted the message shortly after. While Fox distribution chief Chris Aronson claimed that Fox supported Trank’s version of the film, Kebbell conversely stated, “I tell you, the honest truth is [Trank] did cut a great film that you’ll never see. That is a shame. A much darker version, and you’ll never see it.”
Locked out of editing and reshoots, Trank’s vision for the four can only really be glimpsed in the first half hour. Clearly drawing from the Ultimate FF run of comics, we get some wonderful backstory for Reed and Ben, before the rest are brought in. Then the cross-dimensional travel happens (again, drawn from Ultimate FF) which gives them the powers before….. cut to months later and a whole mess of a film hits, climaxing with a terrible Doom idea and a messy CGI fuelled end battle on an alien landscape (shots in early trailers had New York under attack – these were nowhere to be seen).
Miles Teller reportedly refused to come back for reshoots, whilst Kate Mara had changed her hair so was donned a diabolical wig for pickups.
Trank was reportedly “difficult” according to press releases, but how much of this was spin from producers is debatable -after all, by this point Fox had made a name as a studio that takes promising indie directors, gives them a big project, then muscles in and wrecks that project, and essentially the promise of said director (see X-Men Origins Wolverine for how they did Gavin Hood dirty).
The result is the worst F4 film to date, despite some decent stars in the case.
So now we just look to the future (foundation?) as First Steps arrives in a matter of weeks. Will this be a bold new step in the right direction for the Galaxy’s Greatest Family, or will it join the other 4 entries to become problematic entries into why Marvel’s flagship comic should remain in printed form?
We can only wait and see.