Fantastic Four (2015 film)


Fantastic Four is a 2015 American superhero film based on the Marvel Comics superhero team of the same name. It is the third and final theatrical Fantastic Four film to be produced and distributed by 20th Century Fox and a reboot of the Fantastic Four film franchise. Directed by Josh Trank, who co-wrote the screenplay with Jeremy Slater and Simon Kinberg, the film stars Miles Teller, Michael B. Jordan, Kate Mara, Jamie Bell and Toby Kebbell. In Fantastic Four, the team must learn to harness their superhuman abilities gained from an alternate universe to save Earth from a friend turned enemy.
After disappointed at the box office, Fox announced plans to reboot the franchise and development of the film began in 2009. Trank was hired to direct in July 2012 and the principal characters were cast in January 2014. Principal photography began in May 2014 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and lasted for two months. Dissatisfied with the production, Fox executives mandated reshoots, which took place in January 2015.
Fantastic Four premiered at Williamsburg Cinemas in New York City on August 4, 2015, and was released on August 7 in the United States. The film was widely panned by critics, who criticized its screenplay, directing, lack of humor, inconsistent tone, visuals, slow pace and unfaithfulness to the source material. Trank himself has also voiced his displeasure with the final film, blaming studio interference and has since disowned the film. It was a box office bomb, grossing $168 million worldwide against a production budget of $155 million and losing up to $100 million. At the 36th Golden Raspberry Awards, it won in the categories for Worst Director, Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-off or Sequel and Worst Picture and was also nominated for Worst Screen Combo and Worst Screenplay.
A sequel was scheduled to be released on June 9, 2017, but was cancelled after the first film's failure. With the acquisition of 21st Century Fox by Disney in 2019, the film rights reverted to Marvel Studios; a second reboot, set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, is currently in development.

Plot

Childhood friends Reed Richards and Ben Grimm have worked together on a prototype teleporter since youth, eventually attracting the attention of Professor Franklin Storm, director of the Baxter Foundation, a government-sponsored research institute for young prodigies. Reed is recruited to join them and aid Storm's children, scientist Sue Storm and engineer Johnny Storm, into completing a "Quantum Gate" designed by Storm's protégé Victor Von Doom.
The experiment is successful, and the facility's supervisor, Dr. Allen, plans to send a group from NASA to venture into a parallel dimension known as "Planet Zero". Disappointed at being denied the chance to join the expedition, Reed, Johnny and Victor along with Ben use the Quantum Gate to embark on an unsanctioned voyage to Planet Zero, which they learn is a world filled with otherworldly substances. Victor attempts to touch the green lava-like substance, causing the ground they are standing on to erupt. Reed, Johnny and Ben return to their shuttle just as Sue brings them back to Earth and Victor is seemingly killed after he falls into the collapsing landscape. The Quantum Gate explodes, altering Reed, Sue, Johnny and Ben on a genetic level and granting them superhuman abilities beyond their control: Reed can stretch like rubber, Susan can become invisible and generate force fields, Johnny can engulf his entire body in fire and fly, and Ben develops a rock-like hide which gives him superhuman strength and durability. They are then placed in government custody in order to be studied and have their abilities tested. Blaming himself for the accident, Reed escapes from the facility and tries to find a cure for their changes.
One year later, Reed is now a fugitive and has built a suit that helps him control his ability. Hiding in Central America, he is eventually found by the United States military with Sue's help and captured by Ben, who has become a military asset along with Johnny and Sue. Johnny and Sue have been outfitted with specialized suits designed to help them control their abilities. Reed is brought to Area 57, where Dr. Allen conscripts him into rebuilding the Quantum Gate in exchange for giving Reed the resources to find a cure. Arriving in Planet Zero, Dr. Allen's explorers find Victor, who has been fused to his spacesuit and now possesses telekinetic abilities, and bring him back to Earth. Believing the humans needs to be destroyed so he can rebuild Earth in his image, Victor kills the scientists and soldiers in the base, including Dr. Allen and Professor Storm, and returns to Planet Zero using the Quantum Gate, with Ben, Johnny, Reed and Sue in pursuit.
Now dubbing himself "Doom", Victor activates a portal on Planet Zero using the Quantum Gate and begins consuming the landscape of the Earth using a structure he created from the rock formations in Planet Zero. He is confronted by the four and, after a short battle, Ben punches Doom into the portal's energy beam, disintegrating him while Johnny closes the portal. Returning to Earth, the group is rewarded by the US military for their heroics by being given a new base of operations known as "Central City" in order to study their abilities without government interference. They decide to use their powers to help people and adopt the mantle of the "Fantastic Four".

Cast

Additionally, Dan Castellaneta portrays Mr. Kenny, Reed's teacher and Tim Heidecker appears as Mr. Richards, Reed's stepfather. Chet Hanks, son of actor Tom Hanks, appears as Jimmy Grimm, Ben Grimm's older brother.

Production

Development

In August 2009, 20th Century Fox announced that they would reboot the Fantastic Four film franchise. Akiva Goldsman was hired as producer, and Michael Green to write the screenplay. At the time, actors Adrien Brody and Jonathan Rhys Meyers were considered for the role of Mr. Fantastic, and Kiefer Sutherland the role of The Thing. In July 2012, Josh Trank was hired to direct, and Jeremy Slater as screenwriter. While Trank was being considered as director, writers Zack Stentz and Ashley Edward Miller were assigned to work on the script. After Trank officially signed on, he decided to write his own script instead. Slater's original script featured the villains Galactus and Dr. Doom with Doom depicted as a spy who becomes a herald of Galactus, and eventually the dictator of Latveria.
Trank and Slater's idea for the movie were tonally opposite with Slater revealing that he viewed 2012's The Avengers as a template while Trank "just fucking hated every second of it." Trank admitted that he found himself unable to identify with Slater's more comic book-centric tone. Furthermore, he would purposefully decrease any creative choice he had with it by preventing him from meetings without his permission and limit the amount of notes he got from the studio. Slater added "I never saw 95% of those notes," and left after six months. In February 2013, Matthew Vaughn was attached to produce, and Seth Grahame-Smith hired to polish the script. In October 2013, Simon Kinberg was hired as co-writer and producer. In April 2014, the Calvary FX was hired for the film's pre-visualization.
According to 20th Century Fox's consultant for their Marvel Comics–based films, Mark Millar, the film would take place in the same universe as the X-Men film series. Although Kinberg contradicted this statement, Bryan Singer confirmed talks of a potential crossover among Fox. Trank has said that the film is heavily influenced by David Cronenberg, that 1981's Scanners and 1986's The Fly influenced the look of the film, and that its overall tone would feel like a "cross between Steven Spielberg and Tim Burton".

Casting

In January 2014, Kinberg finished rewriting the script, and casting for the roles of Reed Richards and Sue Storm began. Miles Teller, Kit Harington, Richard Madden, and Jack O'Connell were tested for the role of Reed, before Teller was cast. Meanwhile, Kate Mara, Saoirse Ronan, Margot Robbie, and Emmy Rossum were tested for Sue. In February, it was revealed that Michael B. Jordan would play Johnny Storm / Human Torch, and Mara was cast as Sue Storm / Invisible Woman. In March, Toby Kebbell was cast as Victor von Doom, and Teller confirmed that Jamie Bell had been cast as Ben Grimm / The Thing. Sam Riley, Eddie Redmayne, and Domhnall Gleeson were considered for Doctor Doom. Mads Mikkelsen also auditioned for the role of Doom; initially reported as having walked out calling the audition process "mad" and "wrong", Mikkelsen later stated that the only thing he was asked to do during his audition was stretch his arms as long as he could make them. In April, Tim Blake Nelson entered final negotiations to play Harvey Elder. In May, Reg E. Cathey was cast as Sue's and Johnny's father, Dr. Storm.
The casting of a black actor, Michael B. Jordan, as the new Johnny Storm spawned controversy among some fans. Director Josh Trank justified his decision by saying the move to cast Jordan as Johnny Storm was taken to bring the iconic comic book team in line with real-world demographics. Trank would receive numerous death threats through IMDb message boards and slept with a.38 Special on his nightstand. He returned the gun after production had wrapped. He later admitted that he wanted to cast a black actress for the role of Susan Storm, but that the studio insisted on retaining her ethnicity for the film. "I was mostly interested in a black Sue Storm and a black Johnny Storm and a black Franklin Storm...when you're dealing with a studio on a massive movie like that, everybody wants to keep an open mind to who the big stars are going be...I found a lot of pretty heavy push back on casting a black woman in that role." He added that being denied a black Susan Storm should have convinced him to step away from the project.

Filming

Fantastic Four had a production budget of $155 million. Principal photography commenced on May 5, 2014, at the Celtic Media Centre in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and ended on August 23, 2014, lasting for 72 days. The film received $29.1 million in tax incentives and spent $97.4 million in Louisiana. Matthew Jensen served as director of photography. The film was planned to be shot in Vancouver, Canada, but was moved to Louisiana due to the state's film production tax incentives. During filming, producers Hutch Parker and Simon Kinberg rewrote Trank's original script and gave the film a different ending. In January 2015, reshoots were ordered by 20th Century Fox executives who were not satisfied with the film, feeling that the movie felt more like a sequel to Trank's previous film, Chronicle.
Before the film's release, several sources had reported that there were multiple disagreements between 20th Century Fox and Trank during production. After being unsatisfied with Trank's original cut, Fox ordered their own changes to the film without Trank's supervision, changing and omitting certain major plot points from Trank's version. Many other sources claimed that there was "erratic behavior" from Trank on the set of the film, which resulted in Fox's negative treatment of him. Trank posted a message on Twitter one day prior to the film's release that criticized the finished film. Expressing dissatisfaction towards the final product, he stated, "A year ago I had a fantastic version of this. And it would've 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 did cut a great film that you'll never see. That is a shame. A much darker version, and you'll never see it." Trank further disowned the film by removing it from his Instagram filmography.
After Stan Lee's death three years later, Trank lamented that he had "let him down", even though after the film's release, he had received a personal letter from Lee asking him if he was okay. In 2020, Trank has admitted that much of the sequences he had planned had gone unfilmed, thus making a director's cut practically nonexistent.

Post-production

The film used the Los Angeles-based company OTOY for the visual effects. Moving Picture Company, Pixomondo, Rodeo FX and Weta Digital also created visual effects for the film. Moving Pictures Company took on the visual effects for The Thing, rendering a fully digital character based on Jamie Bell's on-set performance and the Human Torch's fiery visual effects. Weta Digital handled Reed Richards' stretch effects. Pixomondo delivered Sue Storm's force-field and cloaking effects and augmented Doom's costume. James E. Price served as the over-all visual effects supervisor. Kinberg stated that the film would be converted to 3D in post-production, but those plans were canceled, with Trank stating that he wanted "the viewing experience of Fantastic Four to remain as pure as possible for the audience, which means in 2D". A sequence showing The Thing performing a "dive-bomb" in the film was cut due to budget constraints.

Music

In January 2015, Marco Beltrami was hired to compose the film's score. Philip Glass was also hired to work on the score with Beltrami. Additionally, American hip-hop recording artist El-P scored the end credits of the film. To promote the film, Kim Nam-joon, known as RM of the Kpop group BTS, and American recording artist Mandy Ventrice, worked on the digital single "Fantastic", which was released alongside the South Korean run of the film. In July 2015, Beltrami attended the 2015 San Diego Comic-Con International to discuss scoring the film. Beltrami described the score as "eerie" and "mysterious", landing it in a "musical territory leaning towards fantasy." The film score was released on August 14, 2015, by Sony Classical Records. In spite of the film's negative reception, the soundtrack still gained a positive response.

Marketing

The teaser trailer for Fantastic Four was released in January 2015 to a generally positive response. Graeme McMillan of The Hollywood Reporter gave the trailer a positive review, calling it a "surprisingly strong step in the right direction for a faithful adaptation of an often-problematic property." Abraham Riesman of New Yorks Vulture also responded to the trailer positively, saying that the film "could be the most innovative and tonally unique marquee superhero movie." However, correspondents for Newsarama noted that there was "nothing" in the trailer to characterize it as being based on the Fantastic Four, feeling it could have easily been a substitute for similar science fiction films such as 2014's Interstellar. The trailer became the most-watched trailer in 20th Century Fox's history, surpassing the previous record-holder, 2014's .
The second trailer for the film was released in April 2015. Sean O'Connell of CinemaBlend called the trailer "amazing" and said that it "does a much better job of setting up everyone's roles." Drew McWeeny of HitFix said the film "looks like it was approached with serious intent" and that the scale "feels positively intimate." In the same month, the cast attended CinemaCon to present footage from the film, which also generated positive reviews.

Release

The world premiere of Fantastic Four occurred at Williamsburg Cinemas in New York City on August 4, 2015. It was released in North America on August 7, 2015, on 3,995 screens. In December 2012, the film was scheduled for a March 6, 2015, release date, and was later changed again in November 2013 to June 19, 2015, before settling on its final date of August 7, 2015.

Reception

Box office

Fantastic Four grossed $56.1 million in North America and $111.9 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $167.9 million, against a production budget of $155 million, making it the lowest grossing Fantastic Four film to date, as well as the many among the biggest flops from a Marvel property after Howard the Duck, Elektra, and '.
In the United States and Canada, Fantastic Four was projected to take the top spot and earn around $40–50 million on its opening weekend, which would be lower than the opening weekend gross of 2005's Fantastic Four and 2007's '. The film made $2.7 million from late night previews on the night of August 6. On its opening day, Fantastic Four earned $11.3 million, lower than early tracking, and $25.6 million on its opening weekend, marking one of the lowest openings of all time for a big-budget superhero movie which box office analysts have attributed to poor critical reviews and audience reception. It came in second place behind . When asked by The New York Times to comment on the weekend box office results, Chris Aronson, Fox's president of domestic distribution said: "There's not much to say. I have never seen a confluence of events impact the opening of a movie so swiftly," referring to negative reviews and a renegade tweet by Trank that blamed the studio for the poor reviews. In the film's second weekend, it grossed $8 million, dropping 69% from the opening weekend. Its low financial performance led to it being categorized as a box office flop. It was dubbed the second biggest box office failure of 2015, behind Tomorrowland, estimating the film's losses to be between $80 million and $100 million.
Outside North America, the film grossed $33.1 million on its opening weekend from 43 countries from 8,996 screens, coming at second place behind Rogue Nation at the international box office. While it underperformed in certain countries, it opened at number one in 20 countries. Its top openings were in Mexico, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Malta, France, Venezuela and Brazil.

Critical response

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 9% based on, with a weighted average rating of 3.46/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Dull and downbeat, this Fantastic Four proves a woefully misguided attempt to translate a classic comic series without the humor, joy, or colorful thrills that made it great." It is currently the lowest-rated film on Rotten Tomatoes out of all theatrical films based on Marvel Comics properties. The website Metacritic gave the film a weighted average score of 27 out of 100, based on, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". It received a "C–" rating from audiences surveyed by CinemaScore on a scale of A+ to F, which was referred to by Pamela McClintock of The Hollywood Reporter as "the worst grade that anyone can remember for a marquee superhero title made by a major Hollywood studio."
Peter Travers of Rolling Stone gave Fantastic Four one star out of four, calling it "the cinematic equivalent of malware" and "worse than worthless." Jim Vejvoda of IGN criticized the film as "aesthetically drab and dramatically inert", said that the two previous Fantastic Four films "seem better in hindsight", and that the film did not show enough character development between the members of the team. He also criticized the blatant continuity errors, such as Mara's changing hair style and color and Teller's disappearing facial hair, brought on by the film's reshoots. Brian Lowry of Variety found the film to be a technical improvement over the 2005 release but criticized its uneven pacing and writing, saying "Ultimately, Fox's stab at reviving one of its inherited Marvel properties feels less like a blockbuster for this age of comics-oriented tentpoles than it does another also-ran—not an embarrassment, but an experiment that didn't gel." Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter felt the film is "like a 100-minute trailer for a movie that never happens." He called the film "maddeningly lame and unimaginative" in addition to criticizing the visual style as a "dark, unattractive, gloomy mode." In a review for Screen Daily, Tim Grierson criticized the film's narrative as nonsensical, making the film "progressively more muddled and tedious." A.O. Scott of The New York Times noted that it "feels less like a tale of superhero beginnings than like a very long precredit opening sequence."
David Jenkins of Little White Lies, on the other hand, praised Fantastic Four for its stylistic deviation from other recent superhero films, and argued that the film's characters "make decisions which may appear to lack credibility, but the writing works hard to show you why these people are doing what they are doing – and it's not just haphazard patching work, but believable reasons which build on the themes of the movie". James Berardinelli gave the film two and a half stars out of four, saying Fantastic Four is "no better or worse the other superhero movies of 2015", welcoming the dark tone, and praising the performance of the main actors. Berardinelli concluded that as a superhero film, "it falls into the 'adequate' range of the spectrum—neither memorable nor forgettable."
Yahoo! Movies, Toronto Sun, Indiewire, and Rolling Stone have included Fantastic Four in their lists compiling the worst films of 2015.

Accolades

Home media

Fantastic Four was released by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment on Blu-ray Disc and DVD on December 15, 2015. It was later released on Ultra HD Blu-ray on March 1, 2016. It was also released on the Disney+ streaming service in June of 2020.
As of February 2016, Fantastic Four had sold nearly 400,000 DVD copies and 350,000 Blu-ray copies. As of December 2018, the film had grossed $13.4 million on home video.

Future

Cancelled sequel

Before Fantastic Four began filming, 20th Century Fox announced plans for a sequel with a scheduled release date of July 14, 2017. Fox then rescheduled the release for June 2, 2017, with War for the Planet of the Apes taking its place on the July 14, 2017, slot. It changed the release date again to June 9, 2017, to be two weeks after initial scheduled release date of May 26, 2017.
Due to Fantastic Four poor box office performance and negative reviews, Pamela McClintock of The Hollywood Reporter said that it "throws into question whether Fox will move ahead with a sequel". Phil Hoad of The Guardian said it would "be interesting" to see if Fox proceeds with a sequel and if it keeps the "gritty-on-paper" tone, noting that if Fox did not produce another film by 2022, the rights would revert to Marvel Studios. Despite the performance, it was reported in September 2015 that Fox still planned to produce a sequel, with Simon Kinberg working on the project. Drew McWeeny of HitFix said that while a sequel may not be produced in time for the 2017 release date, Fox would likely attempt to salvage the franchise, working with Trank's defined vision and adding adjustments to it. While Kinberg affirmed his intent to make a sequel, Kate Mara said that a sequel looked unlikely, despite expressing interest in reprising her role as Sue Storm. In September 2015, Tommy Wiseau expressed enthusiasm in directing a sequel, having personal admiration for the film.
In November 2015, the sequel was removed from Fox's release schedule. In May 2016, Kinberg reaffirmed his intent to make another Fantastic Four film with the same cast. Later that month, Toby Kebbell stated he had no interest in reprising his role as Dr. Doom if a sequel were to happen. In August, both Miles Teller and Kate Mara said they were open to returning for a sequel. On February 24, 2017, when asked by Collider whether they would make another Fantastic Four film, Kinberg stated "I have no idea. I think the truth is we would not do another Fantastic Four movie until it was ready to be made. One of the lessons we learned on that movie is we want to make sure to get it 100% right, because we will not get another chance with the fans".
Matthew Vaughn has expressed interest in directing a new version of Fantastic Four himself as an apology saying, "One of my favorites is the Fantastic Four, so maybe one day I'll try and rectify the mistake." Concept artist Alexander Lozano revealed that Trank's iteration of the Fantastic Four were considered for cameo appearances in Tim Miller's take on Deadpool 2.

Marvel Cinematic Universe

Toby Kebbell stated he would only be interested in returning to the role of Doctor Doom if he joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Kebbell added "Truth is, Doom is an incredible bad guy. They just keep trying to force him into the Fantastic Four...Doom is a monster, but you know my Doom was not, so there's that". Stan Lee also expressed interest in the Fantastic Four, as well as the X-Men, returning to Marvel Studios stating, "We should have all of our characters under Marvel. Remind me on my way home to do something about that. We'll do our best." However, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige stated in June 2017 that there were no plans of adding the Fantastic Four to the MCU at that time.
On December 14, 2017, Marvel Studios's parent company, The Walt Disney Company, agreed to acquire 20th Century Fox's parent company, 21st Century Fox. Disney's CEO Bob Iger stated that they plan to integrate the Fantastic Four into the MCU. The merger was completed by March 20, 2019, and as a result, the film rights reverted to Marvel Studios. At the 2019 Marvel Studios San Diego Comic-Con Hall H presentation, Feige announced that a Fantastic Four film which is set in the MCU is in development,. John Krasinski, who has been a fan favorite pick, revealed in an interview that he is very interested in portraying Mister Fantastic.