Have you seen what the upcoming years' movie lineup looks like? In just half a decade, both Marvel and DC will release more than two dozen films, with several projects still awaiting confirmation. Some franchises have been left on the sidelines, but their owners are doing everything they can to bring them back into the fight. Fantastic Four is one of them, and I must confess that its trailer has left us quite intrigued.
Some believe Marvel is living a dream. Comic book sales are falling apart, but the box office success of its movies has cleared away any immediate worry. The most complete project is undoubtedly the Cinematic Universe, which this year will bring us things like Ant-Man and Avengers: Age of Ultron. Sony has managed to defend its lone bastion called Spider-Man, and the same can be said of Fox with the X-Men saga and the parallel adventures of Wolverine. Other Marvel heroes haven't fared as well on the big screen—Ghost Rider, Daredevil, and Elektra are three examples that come to mind—and then there are those that simply fell into abandonment. That case applies to Fantastic Four. “Rise of the Silver Surfer” came very close to surpassing the $300 million barrier, but Fox considered that performance insufficient and canceled the third movie, as well as a spinoff based on Silver Surfer. Well, with the next half decade of cinema at the mercy of superheroes, guess who's going to get a reboot?
A New Origin Story?
The original story tells us that the Fantastic Four acquired their powers after being exposed to cosmic rays. However, what the official trailer has revealed so far makes us think of a new origin for these “superheroes of science”. Fans online calculate that it's the Negative Zone, a domain frequently visited by the Fantastic Four and a key piece in the development of Civil War. Directors, producers, and writers have refused to confirm this rumor, so the most likely thing is that it's true. We will also see a “politically correct” change in the Human Torch—his actor is African-American, something already seen with Nick Fury and Perry White in the Superman movie—and what seems to be a firm bet by Fox on young characters, since three of the four Fantastic members don't exceed thirty years of age.
Cast and Release Date
The main cast of Fantastic Four includes Miles Teller (Project X) as Reed Richards, Kate Mara (Shooter, Transcendence) as Susan Storm, Michael B. Jordan (Red Tails, Parenthood) as Johnny Storm, Jamie Bell (Billy Elliot, Jumper) as Ben Grimm, and Toby Kebbell (Prince of Persia, Black Mirror) as Doom. The movie has already had two date changes, and if nothing strange happens in these months, we'll see it starting August 7. Oh, by the way: a sequel has already been confirmed for 2017.
