"It looks like Fantastic 4 flopped this weekend..." Topic

…placing 2nd, behind Mission Impossible, taking in $26.2 USD million and getting a Rotten Tomatoes score of 9%.

Director Josh Trank is already blaming Fox saying he had nothing to do with the final cut.

Evidence has been quietly stacking up for several months to back him up, and quite a few reviewers peg the last quarter of the movie as being a different movie. They reshot without him.

What do you expect? It's a superhero movie. Are you expecting quality?

Surprised he just didn't put "Alan Smithee" as Director on the movie…..

The Fantastic Four is not good. This may be the problem.

For what it's worth my son did not like it… And he usually likes everything.

From the way the rumor mill was churning, he was shown the door too fast to Smithee the credits, and Fox would probably not have tolerated that in any case. This was supposed to be a franchise relaunch; a Smithee credit would have been a huge deal. Of course, now Fox has a bomb on its hands that is everyone's fault.

"Fantastic Four is not good"
They've been a soap opera the whole time, and are led by a guy who is only a super"hero" because no one outside the team really knows him. Reed Richards is an amoral mad scientist with excellent PR.

Easy now, don't be dissin' Reed, he's gotta deal with a super team composed of a hothead, a rockstar, and a girl you can't find…

I'm not surprised.

Too bad.

Wonder if there will be a director's cut DVD release.

It had a fairly good review in the Times this weekend, though one complaint was that it seemed like a long prologue/intro for the next film.

I liked the original 2 FF films (partly due to Jessica Alba) and have always liked the FF as a comic.

Mike

10 years is too soon to do a remake

What shardik said, plus one

Whilst I haven't seen the new FF movie, I did think the second trailer made it look more like a movie I wanted to see (although Reed Rcihards springing about with elongated limbs did remind me of a gibbon).

I did like the first two FF movie's, as I felt that they did get some parts of it right. Whilst people did not feel that Michael Chiklis did not look right as the Thing, I thought his and Chris Evans' performance did reflect the characters from the comic. And Jessica Alba did grow into the role of the Invisible Woman in the 2nd movie. However, casting of Reed Richards and especially Doom was flawed. Viggo Mortenson would have made a better Doom, IMHO.

I think that The Incredibles did a better job of doing the Fantastic Four than the official releases.

The best F4 movie is stil the (sadly unreleased) Roger Corman epic:

YouTube link

"It's clobberin' time!"

That couldn't be any more wrong-- the Corman "epic" was a complete pile of crap with bad acting and even worse special effects. It was shelved for a reason.

The last two movies weren't great but they got the characters and their interaction down to a tee. The plots and especially the awful portrayal of Doom was what kept them from being all time classics. What is readily apparent is that Fox should NOT be making superhero movies! Leave that to Marvel.

According to what I have been told, there are scenes in the trailers that never made it to the movie. The part where The Thing drops from a plane to impact in some sort of base, is not in the movie. After the four receive their powers they are not shown working with and learning about them, the movie just jumps to "one year later". The studio cut out stuff already filmed and did not allow the director to finish filming on some of his already built sets.

I had great hopes for this as I dislike the old movies – and the trailers have looked great.

But I've been given a non-spoiler critique by a friend who saw it at the weekend and pretty much likes most Superhero films….and the verdict was "not good".

If you want to know what clinical depression feels like go and watch FF.

When's the last time somebody did a "straight" remake or adaptation ? The last few films of that ilk I saw were too busy trying to second-guess the audience and sprinkle it with subverted call-backs to the original film ‘Lose the arm/we kept the arm", "Spock dies/Kirk dies", "Pa Kent is a wise salt-of-the-earth farmer who instills his son a set of great values/Pa Kent is a suicidal paranoid misanthrope who does everything to f- up Clark's head."
"Doom is a super-science genius with royal level arrogance to match who wants to rule the planet/Doom is a socially maladjusted computer nerd with a mean streak who goes crazy and wants to destroy the planet."

Rarely have I seen a film that was so utterly terrified/hateful of its own premise as it tried everything to pretend it's everything BUT a superhero film. It's clear there was too much money at stake NOT to pull the plug.

So instead of doing a big trippy cosmic adventure, we got yet another desturated, colourless movie experience loved by absolutely everyone except the audience. Once again insisting on it being dark and gritty despite adding absolutely nothing whatsoever to the story other than some delusional belief that it magically betterifies the film and will put bums on seats.

And how in Excelsior's name can you possibly screw up Dr Doom whose earlier pantomime clown version (basically a bland, simulacrum of a performance and a set of powers randomly picked from a hat) clings to the new one like a bad stink ? At some point I was actually wishing they had cast somebody like Nicolas Cage to play Doom and chew up the scenery so badly it would be as if the 90's never went away. Every single character in FF could have been played by a cardboard cutout and their personalities simply inferred by exposition and shortcuts provided by the extras "He's a genius, she's brilliant, he's a hothead …" rather than actually write and act this into the film …

I've only missed one superhero movie when it came out in the last 10 years, Ryan Reynold's 'Green Lantern.' This FF reboot will be the second.

As for 20th Century FOX doing Marvel movies, they've done alright with the X-Men franchise. They just need good writers and directors for FF.

, Patrick R.

Well, there goes my trip to Denny's!

I liked the last 2 FF films also. I thought they were great. But when I saw the trailer for this new one, I thought what does this have to do with the FF? If the trailer was that bad I can only imagine how bad the whole movie is. Had no desire to see this poor incarnation.

Thinking I will give this a pass too, at least until it shows up on Netflix.

I have also heard a lot of rumors bout this movie, especially when it comes to studio meddling. Apparently there w as a lot of footage cut or unfilmed that would have given this movie it's 'heart." But the studio felt otherwise, and here is the end product…

Damon.

Agree with Warwizard, enjoyed the first 2, the trailer looked overly serious. Chris Evans nailed Johnny Storm…

There is one good thing about FF, they do allow you to sit down to watch it.

Don't follow it, and haven't read much about it, but the one head-line I saw seems to be fairly on target, based upon what has been posted here.

Apparently, it got a 9% rating out of 100%, and has earned the dubious distinction of "worst superhero movie ever".

That is saying something.

At some point I was actually wishing they had cast somebody like Nicolas Cage to play Doom …

Oh. My. Gawd.

With David Hasselhoff as Mr. Fantastic, and Mr. T voicing a CGI Thing.

It would be awesome in its levels of bad.

Apparently, it got a 9% rating out of 100%

In stark contrast to Shaun the Sheep. I know which movie I would rather watch.

Ron

P.S. If you need Nic Cage to come save your movie, you're in real trouble…

I will never forgive Galactus being portrayed as a giant cloud of gas.

(That's Stan Lee's part!)

That couldn't be any more wrong-- the Corman "epic" was a complete pile of crap with bad acting and even worse special effects. It was shelved for a reason.

The last two movies weren't great but they got the characters and their interaction down to a tee. The plots and especially the awful portrayal of Doom was what kept them from being all time classics. What is readily apparent is that Fox should NOT be making superhero movies! Leave that to Marvel.

[ ] Your sarcasm detector works
[X] Your sarcasm detector is kaput

;)

Sorry, it didn't come across as sarcasm, and considering the breadth of opinions here on TMP (I regularly see people saying Thin Red Line was a GREAT movie and that they simply LOVE the Fast and Furious… things) I had no problem believing somebody might love a pile like that FF movie.

But… point taken. 8)=

Some more by Wired & picture of original script on twitter:

link

link

Sorry, it didn't come across as sarcasm, and considering the breadth of opinions here on TMP (I regularly see people saying Thin Red Line was a GREAT movie and that they simply LOVE the Fast and Furious… things) I had no problem believing somebody might love a pile like that FF movie.

But… point taken. 8)=

I probably should be offended because it's outrageous that someone would actually believe that someone else could find the Corman movie anything else but campy and B-tastic :D

Good god his original script sounds even worse than what they came out with. Awful, awful dreck which doesn't sound like anything the FF would be saying or doing.

I was never prone to believe the director's wailing that his Vision was "awesome to the max", any more than I believe that Fox wouldn't have been so heavy-handed if they weren't seriously concerned this would be DOA otherwise.

With FF continuing to be a half-disassembled, tarp-covered clunker leaking oil all over Fox's driveway, you'd think they'd beg Disney to buy them out of their money pit. Seven years is too soon for the memory of this stinker to pass, what are they REALLY going to do with this property from here?

Is anyone else tired of super hero movies? Are they really that much different from each other? I keep hoping they go the way of the Western, not that I dislike Westerns by the way, but limited to a only a couple every 10 years.

The only ones I really liked in the last 40 years were Superman with Christopher Reeves, great cast and story. Spiderman with Tobey Macguire, another good story and cast. Guardians of the Galaxy was the only one I really liked in the last couple of years, but then none of them really had super powers and the music was really great.

I think there is still plenty of traction in Superheroes, but they have to recognize there is a back catalog of characters with their specific background and that a broad brush or a single approach is not going to work. Superman, Wonder Woman, Lobo, Plastic Man, Deathstroke and even Batman are all very different characters. Lobo is a dark parody, very different from the wacky Plastic Man, but both are humoristic characters. But right now DC/Warner only sees them in terms of Flyng Batman, Boob Batman, Heavy Metal Batman, Elastic Batman, Killer Batman and Batman, properly dark and gritty and brought to you in glorious non-colour.

Superheroes exist in all kinds, there is the classic four-colour adventures, street level, cosmic adventure, it can be "realistic" or completely far out. It can be character driven or action driven.

The problems occur when a studio loses all faith in the property. Marvel could have done the same with Thor, but much to my surprise they did a straight adaptation, Thor is the God of Thunder, take it or leave it. It wasn't "Let's rewrite him into a guy who happens to get something that looks like a hammer and powers that vaguely match those of the comic book character …"

And Ant-Man was a frikkin' HEIST movie. It was excellent and tons of fun. If they can keep twisting the Marvel stuff a little each time like that they will keep getting my money.

Seven years is too soon for the memory of this stinker to pass, what are they REALLY going to do with this property from here?

Guess what, there's a sequel announced for 2017.

Granted, the sequel was announced before the movie was released, sooo… Things might change :)

OK – now I've seen it and…I thought it was pretty good. Sure, it's a SF film with 10 minutes of super hero stuff tacked on the end…but…I liked it.

So there all the critics!

My famiiy loved Ant-Man! It was pure fun with nice character development. We'll pass on FF, which we decided long ago.

Saw FF last week, it SUCKED….

And I really, really like supers movies.

I thought they realised The Human Torch really well.

What do you expect? It's a superhero movie. Are you expecting quality?

Actually it is barely a Superhero film at all – it's more of a SF adventure to brave new worlds crossed with an X-files-ish "you can't trust the government" subplot. As such I think it worked ok. I did like the rethinking of Victor Doom. The "superhero bit" at the end is a bit perfunctory – and I'd agree that anyone who was expecting an IronMan/Averngers/X-Men action-fest would not have their expectations met. But looked at as a more SF film – and the FF were always a bit more of an SF slanted hero team – I think it holds up well. I'm willing to accept that I'm alone in this view though!