Director Josh Trank (Chronicle) had what was an undoubtedly bad year in 2015 when his Fantastic Four saw theatrical release to significant backlash from the critical establishment, leading to the defense of the film from Trank, who claims that his original cut of the film was better than the final theatrical release distributed by 20th Century Fox. In the time since said fallout, the four lead cast members of come forward to cite their personal difficulties in shooting the film, with star Miles Teller (Reed Richards) having reportedly clashed with Trank during production.
Despite going on to become the worst reviewed Marvel comic book movie ever, plans for a sequel are still in the midst of development, whatever faults and missteps may have been taken in the making of Trank’s ill-fated sci-fi spectacle. For better or for worse, Fantastic Four 2 may actually come to fruition, though the latest word from franchise producer/screenwriter Simon Kinberg has it that the sequel would take a different approach to the source material than that which was most recently depicted.
In a recent conversation with Den of Geek conducted at an X-Men: Apocalypse press junket, Kinberg was quick to state his discomfort with the final theatrical performance received by Fantastic Four last Summer, putting it bluntly that, “We didn’t make a good movie.” After going on to say that the mistakes made in compiling a final cut for Trank’s film were errors which can be learned from, Kinberg was still optimistic about the making of a sequel with the same cast. On the possibility of Fantastic Four 2, Kinberg stated:
“We’ll try to be truer to the essence of the tone of Fantastic Four, which is completely, well, not completely, but largely, distinct from the X-Men, which is brighter, funnier, and more optimistic [in] tone. I think we tried to make a darker Fantastic Four movie, which seemed like a radical idea, but we were kind of messing with the DNA of the actual comic instead of trusting the DNA of the comic. We’re working really hard on figuring that out. Nothing would make me happier than the world embracing a Fantastic Four movie.”
For now Fantastic Four 2 does not have an official theatrical release, and given what happened on the Razzie-nominated first installment, it seems less than likely that Fox will want to back another attempt at rebooting the original Marvel Comics property any time soon. Despite some interest in returning to the franchise from star Michael B. Jordan (Johnny Storm), unless the rest of the cast and Fox are fully onboard, the chances of Marvel’s First Family returning to the big screen look less and less likely by the day.
Trank’s alleged bad behavior on the set of Fantastic Four might just put a lid on any plans for a sequel featuring the reboot’s cast of A-list talent. Then again, if Kinberg is as passionate about the project as he claims to be, maybe Fox will want to take his word for it and begin production in earnest on Fantastic Four 2 in the near future in order to rectify the mistakes made by its stumbling origin story.
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