Fantastic Four Movie Reboot Rumors

Why not reboot them all, I say?  What about a fourth Punisher movie?  It's what the world wants!

In that spirit, obviously unhappy with the canon version that is Roger Corman's Fantastic Four, and that other couple of films with the flaming Captain America on a cloudy day, and that amateur actor playing the Invisible Woman, there are talks of Marvel's First Family getting the reboot.  Here's what they're saying:

1)  Three possible directors: Joe Carnahan (A-Team, Smokin' Aces), James McTeigue (V for Vendetta, Ninja Assassin), or David Yates (Harry Potter).  Of the choices, Carnahan is the one who stands to be the most fun, based on the A-Team from this past summer.  But Harry Potter is probably the closest to a comic book feeling movie, with an ongoing storyline, and lots of characters, so Yates could be a good move.  Then McTeigue certainly makes an interesting looking movie.

2)  Kiefer Sutherland as The Thing: Best known as the voice of Bank of America, and some other show that required a lot of yelling and running, it's not a particularly inspired choice, but Keifer does have a gruff raspy voice, as did previous Thing, Vic Mackey.  As long as they decide to acquiesce to the wonders of CGI, and don't go the rubber route again, it'll be an improvement.

3)  Stephen Moyer as Doctor Doom: That's right. In an obvious attempt to cross over the X-Men movies with the new Fantastic Four movie while also garnering tabloid headlines for bringing Anna Paquin into the picture as a 35 year old angry Rogue, the True Blood star might don the armor and hood.  This one I can actually see. It's not a bad call, but hopefully they won't waste too much film on retakes because Moyer keeps saying "Sookie!" instead of "Sue!" It could happen.

And now some of you will say these are good and/or bad ideas, and others of you will say that the first movies were good, and some will say that they were bad, and at least 9 of you will make some joke about the cloud Galactus. But the important thing is that you do say it.

Comments

  1. "As long as they decide to acquiesce to the wonders of CGI, and don’t go the rubber route again, it’ll be an improvement."

    I can’t tell if this is sarcasm. Chiklis’s suit looked pretty good – certainly much better than a jarring CGI insert.

  2. Not sarcasm.

  3. I think the hierarchy would be:

    Good CGI > Good rubber suit > Bad CGI > Bad rubber suit

     But even non-Cameron CGi is looking pretty spiffy these days, as long as the studio will put up the cash and the director knows how to make in work in the frame.

  4. Wait….I thought they were pursing Bruce Willis as The Thing. And arnt they talking about Adrian Brody as mister fantastic?

  5. Even in the time the previous FF movies have come out I think they’ve come a long way with CGI characters.  If they can pull a Golem, have an actor in a green screen suit on set to interact with the other actors and then replace him with a larger CGI THING, it might actually work.  I always picture THING going up against the HULK and the entire time I was watching FF 1 & 2, I just thought there was no way Chiklis could go toe to toe with the HULK.

  6. Well….the directors rumored are good choices. We could have a fun, silly film; an action packed, gritty film; or a faithful adaptation of a story.

    Then it goes downhill from there….Michael Chikilis is bad enough, do we really need The Thing to be screaming for all 2hrs and getting slightly hammered?

  7. I’m good with a CGI Thing.
    So how bout a natural blonde with a real tan as the Invisible Woman to balance things out?

  8. There was also word that whoever does play Ben will only appear in the opening scene, which may be the bomdarment of gamma rays (or whatever they happen to use) or it may be just flashback/set up style like the incredible hulk.

  9. "I love rumors! Facts can be so misleading, but rumors, true or false, are often revealing."

  10. @FACE: I nominate Kristen Bell as the Invisible Woman.

  11. Suit aside, I really liked Chiklis as the Thing.  Kiefer has been so incredibly serious for so long I might have a hard time listening to his voice come out of Ben Grimm.

    I’m not sure Stephen Moyer can act, not sure how I feel about him as Doom, hopefully the character is better than McMahon’s version.

    I’d be cool with all the directors.

  12. @JesTr – I was thinkin Heather Locklear cerca 1986. If I can’t get that Kristen might suffice. = )

  13. @FACE: I like the way you think.

    @gobo: Moyer could fit but ‘d like to see Michael C. Hall as Doom. I really don’t see Sutherland in the role of the Thing.  What do you think of Jon Favreau as Ben Grimm?

  14. @Jestr If we’re going CG we need a good voice, Favreau doesn’t really fit the bill. I’m trying to think of tough, NYC accents with a jewish tinge.  Coming up blank.

  15. I want an animitronic thing like a suped up version of goro from the first MK movie

  16. Chris Evans should play every character…he’s supposed to be the Peter Sellers of comic book movies right? =p

    I really liked Chiklis as the Thing….but i can kinda sorta see Sutherland pull it off. 

  17. @gobo: So you’re looking to cast Brad Garrett?

  18. Tom Jane should play the Thing, just so i can hope beyond hope there’s a dvd extra where the thing says  "Gelatto is milk and eggs bitch."

  19. No CGI for the THING!!!  Everyone says that crap and it’s ridiculous.  The Thing is too important a character to be a figment of people’s imagination.  It didn’t work in Hulk and it won’t work in F4.  I’ve told people that from the day the first one got released.

  20. Yeah, cuz Gollum sucked.

  21. @JesTR Honestly? I don’t think that’s a bad choice.

    @josh Exactly, and I think CG Hulk actually worked well in the Norton one.

  22. I’ll never understand the hate on a CGI Hulk.  The alternative is a guy painted green.  We all loved the TV show but its time to let it go.

  23. The CGI Hulk wasn’t the problem with either of those movies. If anything, it was the best part of both.

  24. Especially the second one. In the first he always seemed a little off, but in the second I thought he felt fully solid and real.

  25. I want, but will never get, a full-on retro FF flick. Set it in 1962, with all the cold war paranoia about The Reds and Atomic Science and have Reed smoking a pipe and Johnny having a DA haircut and working on hot rods and Sue worrying about her man and getting kidnapped and Ben getting prank gifts like exploding "cee-gars" from the Yancy Street Gang. Don’t pay a subtle homage to the Silver Age: own it. Mole Man, monsters, and crazy Kirby machines. Just go fricken nuts. If it’s done earnestly and without irony it’d be a hoot.

    Same for the Flash, damn it. Just put the first 3-4 Showcase stories on the screen. 

  26. @robabsten—agree with everything you said 1000000% that would be so much fun. If it can’t be live action, Get Brad Bird and Darwyn Cooke associated with that project as an animated thing!

  27. screw the actors make it all CGI and just use music and sound effects to tell the story, no words, no voice acting

    not even subtitles, substance is so lame. . .  

    then reboot the franchise

    again 

     

     

    yes, sarcasm 

  28. CGI does not preclude having a good script/production.

  29. @lostartist–What you’re joking about is actually what Stanley Kubrick seriously wanted for the robot characters in AI. Thats why he died waiting to make that movie. He wanted them all to be completely computer generated, including voice and everything. He was waiting for technology to catch up with his needs. 

    He didn’t care for actors very much and was such a perfectionist/control freak he wanted to be able to direct his virtual actors via a programers keyboard.  

  30. Instead Spielberg made one of the worst films I’ve ever sat through. The whole theater rebelled around the third ending.

  31. I thought the first two FF movies were fine, they weren’t great or anything but they were fine, I’m cool with seeing another version of the FF too

     

    Maybe Galactus can come in on the theme of purple people eater  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9H_cI_WCnE

    I’m not sure how anyone could pull that off but. . .   yeah, nevermind

  32. yeah it was pretty lousy…the only saving grace was some of the characters and situations from the source material. But really it was a dud. I was 10000% sure that Kubrick would have ended the movie when the kid took a dive off the top of the building. Kidbot kills himself…fade to black..fin

  33. as far as the CGI conversation….wasn’t the Sllver Surfer some sort of motion capture/CGI hybrid kinda thing?That turned out pretty convincing and i remember the interwebs going apesh#t over him not being 100% CGI before the film came out. 

  34. Is it too hasty to say that Kiefer is too big a star to play The Thing? That’s what makes it hard to swallow these rumors.

     

    All I want in an FF reboot is for Tim Story to NOT direct it.

  35. CGI thing please.

  36. There is one person who could play Doom and that is –

    Christopher Waltz!

    Yeah?

  37. Seinfeld can voice The Thing. Lord knoes he’ll find things to complaint.

  38. Who’s Christopher Waltz?

  39. @josh: Seriously? Must’ve been a bad crowd. Cause A.I. is a pretty good film, especially as a last hurrah for Kubrick.

    Back on topic with FF: Can we just have freakin Purple helmet Galactus? Seriously, if we are committed to get the Infinity Gauntlet (with the possibility of Thanos maybe being the villain) in a Marvel film then we can have Galactus.  

  40. The key to enjoying A.I. is, when you hear Ben Kingsley say the words "10,000 years passed," rise from your chair and calmly exit the theater. Do not look back.

    The key to enjoying the FF movies, I do not have.

  41. @Jimski – The key to the enjoyment of the FF movies is Rifftrax and more Rifftrax.

  42. @JeffR: Ha! Yes I recommend that as well.

    @Jimski: Are you suggesting to leave the film right before the ending? Cause if you are……I agree as well. 

  43. The best Fantastic Four movie was The Incredibles.  They should have stopped making FF movies after that.

  44. Well they stopped making FF movies (hopefully they do it better in this remake), but then they decided to do Incredibles TV, AKA No Ordinary Family.

  45. "flaming Captain America". I imagine you saying that in san franciscan or australian.

  46. @RobAbsten, you are so smart!  

    Setting the time period back resolves many issues, and allows for the fun part of the FF.  Mad Men and Indiana Jones are both retro.  One is good, and the other popular and made lots of money.  

    Of course, knowing my luck a 1960s FF movie would get the Mad Men financal success and the recent Indiana Jones quality.

  47. @ultimatehoratio, you are correct about The Incredibles.  That had that retro feel too, further showing RobAbsten is on to something.

  48. I would love to see a well worked CGI Thing.  I’ve pretended that the rubber Thing suit is more a call back to original mushy Thing before he became fully rocky.  (I’m not saying the movie makers intended this, it’s just the way for me to "accept" the Thing.) Plus CGI might give us a chance to get a better Thing head.

  49. Hey Josh, I’m guessing you’re probably a good one to ask this question, but how can they be making another FF movie?   Should I assume the other movies made plenty of money?

    I guess what reboot says to me is the other movies did okay, but not well enough, yet someone somewhere thinks retooling things could lead to a bigger hit and produce a more fruitful franchise.

    Can you shed more light on the possible thought process here? Thanks!

  50. @powerdad: Fox has to keep the license active or they’d lose the movie rights.

    And the movies weren’t total financial disasters.

    FANTASTIC FOUR made $330,579,719 off of a $100 million production budget.
    FANTASTIC FOUR: RISE OF THE SILVER SURFER made $289,047,763 off of a $130 million production budget.

    Not a good trend that the sequel made so much less than the original, though.

  51. @Conor, okay, so this is kind of like the recent issue with a new Ghost Rider movie. In fact, this is like Roger Corman making that campy FF movie back in the 90s. He was just on the verge of losing the rights, that spurred him to start production. (Now the Thing suit in that movie really did look like old mushy Thing.)