Yourinquirer I agree, maybe we will get on in a few decades when it's been long enough for the cast and crew to open up without damaging any ones current working reputation.
comicbookgirl19 Do you think we'll ever get a director's cut of this? I would really have loved to see the original film that Fox apparently didn't like. I'm sensing it still would have been better than the final cut. I may be proven wrong (yet again) but would like to know nonetheless.
Jeremy Cantrell I think it just got superceded by the Man of Steel reboot and toy merchandising xtravaganza. S. Returns was a much better movie in almost every way but it was bogged down in continuity from the previous 4 Chris Reeve movies and left Superman as an angst-ridden middle-aged unmarried baby daddy continuity-wise; I was surprised to see Hollywood go with that angle from the get go.
there is an image comparing cosplay costumes of Dr Doom and Apocalypse to Fox' and it just makes me face-palm when fans with a small budget can make better looking costumes/designs than Fox can.
MrTelboy because they care about the source and authenticity and are fans... the other care money, getting a hardon from fulfilling some kind of artsy creative vision they think they have to do to stick out from the crowd, or just have no idea about the stuff in the first place and don't care enough in general to learn about it.
MrTelboy Wait till you see Apocalypse in the movie before saying they fucked it up, Singer has not made a lame looking X-Men character yet, so lets see it in action first.
MrTelboy Remember that X-Men Apocalypse is still filming. We won't know what he'll actually look like until the movie is out, after any visual effects are added on to him. That's like saying AoU's Ultron looks like shit after seeing David Spader standing around in a puffy jacket and plastic Ultron headpiece while filming: bigonlinenews.com/wp-content/plugins/RSSPoster_PRO/cache/3568a_spl725137-013.jpg
Ed Mqz i grew up reading xmen comics and im not a fan of of the movies at all. i find them mediocre at best. frankly the non marvel marvel movies are dead to me
I really appreciate you breaking down the factors and politics that lead to the failed production of F4, as it truly is fascinating. I'm so tired of hearing people bag on this movie, but can't explain why they think it's bad.
Glad I don't really care for Fantastic Four enough to see any of the films all the way through. I still feel like it's unfilmable and they need to stop trying.
comicbookgirl19 It's nice to know that someone else shares my fascination with how bad movies get made. It seems like the word Intelligence keeps popping up everywhere these days (Worth: Financial Intelligence, The Economist Intelligence Unit, etc). I think you may have just invented Film Production Intelligence!
comicbookgirl19 Oh, and after seeing the incredible passion and creativity of your production (review/investigative report anyone?), I'll definitely be checking out Epic History.
It's funny how with Deadpool, it seemed like Fox went "okay, let's spend very little, and not prison yard schiv the director's vision... let's just see what happens..."
There's a reason why these studio get rookie directors to helm comic book movies. Because a Director like Steven Spielberg would have to power to lock the studio executive out of the process. The same reason Edgar Wright left Ant-Man is the same reason this director is up in arms, studio interference. The failure of the Fantastic Four is on Fox.
The big difference is that Marvel has a plan and knows that they are doing. They're up front creatively with their directors. Fox on the other hand appears to lack any sort of plan, are clueless, and ended up forcing Trank to make changes and alter previously agreed upon things after the two parties had already came to an agreement.
DOOMED ! It doesn't make a difference if marvel has a plan or not, because these studios will never hire an established director, like Steven Spielberg or a Quinton Tarantino to direct a comic book movie. These directors can and will include clauses in their contracts where they have full authority over the script, where they can literally close the entire movie set off to any and all studio executives, and they also can get what's known as Final Cut Privileges. Which means no re-editing by the studio, no re-writes, whatever that director shot is what ends up on the screen. Marvel tried to push Joss Whedon around the same way, when his contract was up he took his money and left. The first Avengers movie he fought them on set every day and he got his way. Because of Whedons experience with Fox he knew how to keep the Marvel executives in line, so he got to keep the script the way he wrote it. But the Age of Ultron was a different story. Marvel re-edited that movie. Trank falls into the category of Directors who got chewed up by studio system, the same as Edgar Wright with Marvel.
theylied1776 the problem here is that the directors themselves are associated with the franchise and not with any other. It was fine when Joss Whedon was essentially running the main Marvel universe, and Bryan Singer was doing the X-Men franchise for fox and Avi Arad was producing the Tobey Maguire Spiderman. It went to pot when Fox and Sony started bringing in new people who they thought would allow them more control. The director of Ant-Man was lucky his movie was linked to the main Marvel Universe (giving it more potential), the movies linked to Fox are sinking heavily under the expectations of the studio (apart from the last two X-Men movies) but have nothing to support them. Fox is used to the trope of 'we must give the movie its own identity' ,something Whedon was careful not to overuse in the Avengers movies, as it is the death knell of any adaptation.
SantomPh Joss Whedon was not essentially running the main Marvel Universe. Whedon was an "advisor". If he were Marvel would have given him Final Cut Privileges. He never had that in his contract. Kevin Feige is the main showrunner, Marvel Cinematic Universe builder. These studios pluck these little directors out of obscurity because they know they can control them. So this is why you will never see a Steven Spielberg or Quentin Tarantino ever direct comic book movie. It comes down to how their contracts are written. This is why Edgar Wright walk away from Marvel.
+theylied1776 I agree with a lot of what you are saying but Marvel has hired established directors like Joe Johnston and Peyton Reed were established directors. If you mean iconic directors who's name alone sells tickets then there are very few of those to begin with and most would want to do their own projects.
skildren I just hope they get right not to use fantastic 4 team, but because then they can use dr Doom, silver surfer and galactus. Afterall, fantastic four team sucks.
skildren I like Daredevil, don't get me wrong, but you can tell at a lot of points they are extremely limited in budget and are working around it. For example, a lot of episodes are basically "stand around in one or two locations talking" which is not bad but you can tell the reason why is for cost. You can't do this with the Fantastic Four at all, not everything can be an ongoing series.
skildren That would be great. Let's hope that this movie sinks like Megatron in the Laurentian Abyss at the end of the first Transformers movie. Fox claims they're still "committed" to the license, but I bet their hold will probably be broken by 2017. >:D
I strongly suspect that the house was some 20 million dollar estate and one wall had a couple holes in it ($75,000), one couch was chewed ($8,000), one big mirror broken ($3,000), etc, etc
Number 9-Fox has zero regard or respect for the source material. I don't mean they should take the comic and use it as a straight script. But Fox (and Sony) have no idea what makes these characters (or superheroes in general) great. They see a stretchy guy, a flamey guy, a rock guy, and an invisible gal, and proceed to make generic action/sci fi movies with zero substance. The cast of FF was even told to stay away from the comics. My question is, why? All it's going to do is show the actors why the characters are so iconic. If the rights go back to Marvel, which is a sincere hope of mine, Marvel will have essentially a ruined franchise on their hands. They would definitely not be able to make a FF movie (not that they aren't capable, but it'd be a HUGE risk). Their best bet would be to introduce the FF in another movie (Avengers consult the FF for dealing with Thanos, etc.). Anyways, this movie was screwed from jump street and it just goes to show you that studios don't make what fans want to see, they make what they THINK fans want to see.
John Smith Fox is (like its news channels) working with the trope that "what we do is correct, because it feels original and edgy". The Fantastic Four should be exploring the Negative Zone, fighting Annhilus (a way more appropriate villain for the movies), dealing with cosmic events etc. The FF are Marvel's science team, not necessarily an alien/demon/terrorist bashing squad like the Avengers. This is wasted potential. We don't need another Doctor Doom mishap and more importantly, we don't need a recolored Johnny Storm- Marvel has precious few true brother-sister combinations, they were among the best in the comic verse.
+John Smith I'm guessing that Fox will likely allow themselves to lose the rights. They have three bad FF movies (I didn't think the first one was THAT bad, personally) and one of them was a reboot. Even after they started fresh, they still did not have success with the property. They probably feel at this point that Fantastic Four is not a bankable franchise and will let Marvel have it back. Although, I agree that Marvel probably wouldn't be able to make an FF movie, as they would feel it would too risky. As you said, they will essentially have a ruined franchise on their hands. The public perception of the Fantastic Four is not very good.
Modern Fantastic Four is best when they are exploring crazy science things and dealing with family relationships. I would love them to skip an origin and jump straight into a Future Foundation movie.
Adamatronamus There was a script going around a few years ago that was like that. More a fake documentary type that starts after they were active for many years. Sounded a great way to do this. Had newsreel footage style of the fights.
When you really think about what the Fantastic Four is and what the book started out as, imagining the FF as a type of sci-fi body horror super hero genre mashup film seems to be the logical direction to take it. I feel like that's where the film was actually headed until Fox got freaked out and interfered.
DOOMED ! Yeah. That's why I clarified by saying modern FF. The body horror stuff sounds neat if they could commit, but it seems they felt obligated to end it like all the other super hero movies. It can't be both!
DOOMED ! That's why I blame Fox for the rushed ending. The movie feels like a great and new interpretation away from the goofiness of the last FF movies. They should've left it as it originally was intended like Trank and the writers wished.
+VanFanel1980mx Because he is an aberration. and he's brilliant. But, that's not enough, so they made him a powerful magic user, too! Comic writers are full of some pretty terrible ideas.
+VanFanel1980mx Fox has one of the greatest villains in comic book history... so naturally, they keep trying to recreate him as something trendy and fashionable, which is ALWAYS going to fail. DOOM does not care for fashion. DOOM does not care for trends. DOOM is awesome because he is DOOM.
Silver Dragon I don't think they were going for fashionable when they went with the whole suit melded with his skin thing. He does look fairly similar to the ultimate universe version of Doom (with the light peeking out through his armor and such). It's hard to deal with that green cape/cloak/cowl and take the guy seriously though.
zero11010 why the need to "take seriously"? is a super hero movie, I don't go to the theater to analyze and be a pretentious pseudo-artist who can't just enjoy a piece of entertainment, I just want to see my comic book characters on the big screen.
VanFanel1980mx Well, since the 60's he's had the same ridiculous green hood/cloak/robe/cowl. Most characters made at that time look pretty ridiculous by today's standards (I suspect they looked pretty ridiculous by the standards of the day, too). My ability to recognize absurd art direction has nothing to do with my ability or inability to enjoy a piece of entertainment for what it is. You're making poor assumptions.
I enjoy how natural and "real" this channel is at times (simple things like scratching your nose not being cut out). But there's still something adorable about symmetrical arm movements.
julienhmulder It's worth a watch actually, but u can see it online. Not in the sense of quality, just curiosity on what worked and didn't work. I mean the half the reason the film is a disaster is that it is a build up that doesn't get paid off in the end. And the build up isn't too bad
julienhmulder It is watchable. And I agree with comicbook girl on everything. Movie was decent untill that 1 year later part. Looked like slow more serious buildup for epic midle and finale. And movie is bad when buildup is way better then anything else. If they just continued that story movie would be OK. Not great movie, but Ok superhero movie.
enjoyed the x-man volume too. definitely worth the price. hope there will be more in the future. would support a patreon for more history on other superheros
Catwoman is a better watch even though it's a worse movie than Fantastic Four. The biggest issue, which affected the entire movie(even the first half) is that it's joyless. It's too dumb to be a real Kronenberg-esque horror(they get their powers by getting drunk. Come on!). It's too tame to be real body horror due to it's PG 13 rating. It's not fun enough to be a Fantastic Four movie, or a comic book movie in general. It's too somber to be a "so bad it's funny" movie. No matter what form of entertainment that you are looking, this movie will find a way to disappoint you. Catwoman on the other hand is at least a comedy of errors. You can have a good time picking it apart and making fun of it.
The Fantasticar being taken out actually explains a lot of the weird moments in the movie where'd they spend a lot of time showing Sue and Johnny flying the team to different places.
Outside of Jessica Alba being terrible, I didn't hate the first two Fantastic Four movies. I think the main problem with all of the Fox comic movies, outside of Deadpool, is that they don't plan anything out. There's no outline or long-term story planning going on. It's all fly-by-the-seat-of-their-pants writing/directing. The continuity issues that come up with X-Men are staggering. It's not difficult to write an X-Men/F4/Deadpool universe. It isn't. There's so much there that intertwines. And if you write something good, there's no reason you can't collaborate with Disney/MCU on some projects (or have a character exchange of sorts like MCU has setup with Sony). House of M would be sooo good down the road, post-Infinity War.
What really happened is that Trank crumbled under pressure and couldn't be find common ground with Simon Kinberg, this was also why he left Star Wars. Kinberg is running the Star Wars films over at Disney, but he also runs Fox's Marvel properties. He produced Fantastic Four and he was grooming Trank to be the next JJ/Joss/Singer but Trank isn't that guy. Trank trashed the house he was renting in late 2014. That's around the time that Fox was applying pressure on the film, reshoots took place and Fox was trying to figure out how to salvage the movie. This is why there is so much proof of an entirely different movie out there floating in the either. There are currently 11-15 shots in trailers around the world that just don't exist in the film. There's also photos of Johnny's Car becoming the Fantasticar and the team using it to travel to and escape from Planet Zero This is a film that much like the TMNT remake was sabotaged by the studio listening to geek outrage. Jamie Bell shouldn't be Ben Grimm? Ok lets basically cut his relationship with Reed out of the movie. Von Doom can't be Domachev so let's ADR over every mention of his name and reorganize his character. Doom was originally a hacker and conspiracy theorist/survivalist/doomsday bunker nut. Changed due to fan outrage. More and more people condemned the dark nature of the film's advertising and the photos that were getting leaked out and suddenly we have a film that shifts half way through into an action film. Also the studio lost all faith in the film, cutting it's 3D conversion because the version being converted wasn't the one they were going to release. As it was, the film didn't need a conversion because there's very little action that would take advantage of 3D conversion or a few 3D native shots that they had in the woods. This is what happens when you micromanage of a movie to shit, when you listen to what fans THINK they want rather than going with a director's vision. As you said, the first like half of the film isn't necessarily bad. It's when the studio stepped in, did reshoots (that WIG) and the movie turned into generic schlock.
Spot on about the lack of experience and power these young and mostly unproven 'blockbuster' directors have. I think many have barely got through their baptisms of fire over the years by the skin of their teeth whilst the unlucky few get, unfairly, crucified. Learning a craft is becoming a forgotten art. You're expected to hit the ground running and if you fall, well tough fucking shit! You're out!
TfaChicky Trank dug his own grave with that tweet. And trashing that condo. And, come to think of it, that original cut. It can't have been much better than the garbage they eventually spewed out with that second half, but it probably wouldn't be much worse. Ah well, we'll probably never know!
I loved the doc Lost Souls. Watched it before I came across your channel. But since you mentioned it, i have to ask... What did you think of Richard Stanley's Hardware? I fucking love that movie! Have you ever done a retro review on it?
Factor # 0...the script. That was in NO WAY a F4 script. You can make a Cronenberg superhero movie, it's not going to be a big seller but you can make it. But that is not what the Fantastic Four is all about.
10 weird tricks to not fuck up a superhero movie that millionaires don't want you to know and your girlfrend will hate, the third one will shock you. Step 1. don't be FOX Step 2. be MARVEL Step 3........welp.....ref 1. and 2. and ah......screw it, that about dose it.... those are some solid steps, were good there.
I didn't even tried to go watch this film but I find very interesting how into the topic you are, really enjoyed the video, you shine in it and that makes the review very entertaining
I totally agree with the comment about movie directors and how they only get to direct really low budget movies or big huge blockbusters. TV has really taken over the movies that used to be mid budget things and directors from there should probably be where Hollywood should be looking for talent. An obvious example would be the Russo brothers, they started out in TV (most notably Arrested Development and Community) and then moved on to big blockbusters with Marvel. It really is amazing how the quality of TV shows across the board has risen in the last 10 years both from a production standpoint but also the talent working there.
Great review, just a comment, sometimes movies are successfull overseas not because people dont know, now with internet everybody knows everything, but because fo taste. Pacific Rim was almost a failure in the US (very unfair for such a grat movie), but in Asia was a big success.
She does have a point. Most movies today are big budget franchise, animated films, Oscar bait or indies. There really aren't that many 30-60 movies anymore.
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I'm surprised you didn't mention the fact that Marvel cancelled the Fantastic Four comic shortly after the movie was announced. (Of course, I'm using the term "shortly" kind of loosely.)
+Sophia Wilson i don't think that's the reason. The last fantastic four comic that was released didn't do so well selling under 45,000. The fantastic four comics aren't that popular and that's the reason marvel sold it to fox to begin with!
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TheLouis3877 +Sophia Wilson You are correct, but FF has always been considered one of Marvel's flagship franchises, and between the low sales, which also have a lot to do with how Marvel promoted it, and the rights dispute, the comic was canceled, but even critically well received comics like Future Foundation, which could be considered part of the FF family were cancelled. I'm saying Marvel can be very petty and I think this just goes to confirm this.
+chaos123x it sold under 45,000 and I mean really under it didn't do as well as other marvel comics. But there's no surprise since those comics aren't popular.
I just hate that kid actor, in the middle of the Poster. Can't stand him. "Miles Teller" is his name apparently . Hated him in every movie he ever played.
Jabba U indeed. he always came off as a giant d-bag and really rude. Always playing the same asshat character. But I'll be damned if he wasnt fantastic in whiplash :P
I think Fantastic Four made Deadpool possible. Fox and Simon Kinberg were so caught up with Josh Tranks work, that Tim Miller and the gang could get away with the movie as it is. I can't see FOX making a movie with a strap-on in it. That bloody montage.
I remembered the moment my mate finished downloading the First Fantastic Four movie, and was ready to publicly show it to his family and then.. we instantly realize that it was the Original F4, we couldn't stop laughing at how ridiculous it was. We just skimmed it, and carried on looking for the other one.. although, not even that movie was worth pirating. =/ My favourite scene in the Original F4 was when they were about to leave for their "mission", and the Maid (I think) stopped them at the stairs and said, "Ohhh, just look at you guys.. The Fantastic Four." Hahahahahaha, god, that was such a drenched with cheese moment. =D
Weirdly what came to mind for me watching this was Ang Lee's Hulk movie in that Director you wouldn't think of gets to play with comic character you know. Hulk wouldn't be made now but it's the only Hulk movie to come out that actually looks at the personal story with Banner, not "how cool Hulk's smashing stuff up". There's an intervew out there somewhere where Ang Lee talks about his discussion with the Film company and h'es asking them "I@m Ang Lee, you do now I'm going to make my own film here" and the film company almost fobbing him off because the want him making it. I think it's sad this kind of film won't happen again without some film execs intervening if it doesn't go their way, like it looks like happened with Fantastic 4. We'll never personally know how good/ bad the director original film was but I think it would have been interesting.
My friends wanted to watch Mission Impossible but I dragged them to this movie. After we left the theater I gave them the ticket money back because it was soooooooooooooooooooooooo shit.
There were at least 2 major action sequences originally promised to Trank that were later cut from the budget. The dog damage occurred before the loss of the Star Wars film, and actually it's quite common to continue script re-writes through the pre-production process as well as occasionally throughout filming. Good examples of this are present in films like The Rock and Armageddon, where they were actually writing the script while filming. Hard to not hold Trank partially responsible as well though considering his behavior on twitter as well as on set. Certainly sounds like it was a mess all the way around with blame to be shared by all. :(
+Piratearicat No, but those people (including you) are in the minority. 92% of people hated it. The people who hated it vastly outweigh the people who liked it. Their voices speak louder. Therefore, it will be perceived as being a bad movie and people will generally try avoid it. I actually had predicted this movie was going to flop. It sounded horrible from the beginning, even before they started shooting it. I was not sold on Trank's vision at all. He blames the studio interfering with the film as the reason it failed. He claims he had a completely different movie that would have great. I personally doubt that. I don't think I would have liked it either way. This was the first time in a long time that I was not excited for a Marvel movie (or, in this case, a movie based on a Marvel property). I guess I'm glad I didn't bother with it.
My main problem with FF4 was the ages of Reed, Grimm and Doom. I've always believed they should have been in their 40s. Now if they wanted these 3 to play in flashback scenes fine, but to be made believable these three should have been in their 40s. Doesn't matter to me who was older amongst the 3.
I've been on a documentary kick since your last video talking about electric boogaloo. I went and watched that doc. And I loved it. So I came back to watch this video again, as I do with a lot of your vids., and I forgot about your recommendation for lost soul. Netflix and prime have so many docs. It was hard to search thru all of them. Long comment short I'm glad I watched this again because you give the BEST recommendations for movies that people may not be aware of. Your the bees knees baby!
I know! I grew up with Staffordshire Bull Terrier named Conan, similar breed, totally rad dog....who also fucked up the fence and the glass sliding door with his head. I had mad love for the pit bulls homie ;)
comicbookgirl19 lol btw how old are you? You sound like you grew up/went to HS or College in the 90 like me, but you do not look that old. Although I do not either. lol ;)
I watched it, wasn't terrible. I am so not a fan of the fantastic four, but it looked more sci-fi and less goofy to me which had me hooked. I enjoyed it quite a bit despite not agreeing with a lot of the changes that were made, I gave it a chance and I'm happy I did. What I see, is a lot of people jumping on the bandwagon, which happens way to much these days.
Sophia Wilson People seem to bandwagon more today than ever. Not many people will think for themselves for anything these days. I loved the darker tone, and it did seem rushed towards the end but I'm glad I went to see it.
+bibby42 You know you can like what you want. Trank seems to be a real douche though. Even if the studio was giving him grief there were too many people saying how he was rude to the cast and crew and was high and drunk most of the time. Yeah that will make for a great movie. In any event I read a tweet that is allegedly by Trank. Where he basically said if you were a fan of the comic book then this movie was not for you. WTF are you doing making a Fantastic 4 movie then? It seems that he was trying to make "Chronicle 2" when he was suppose to be making F4. And then the studio stepped in. I wanted to see a F4 movie. So this movie stunk.
Just finished watching Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley's Island of Dr. Moreau as per your recommendation. Some of the best behind the scenes fuckery and commentary I've ever seen! Hopefully someday they'll make a documentary about this shit storm of a movie.
She's right with her initial analysis. The first hour of this film was very chilling and gripping. The scenes with young Reed and Ben (very Spielberg in their approach) all up to the horror of all four dealing with their body changes were very well crafted. But you can tell where the studio interference occurs. And it falls from there. Trank pretty much got David Fincher-ed by FOX. But hopefully like Fincher, he will take time out, then come back with a film in which he will be lauded.
Great explanation and It helps me better understand the issues involved as a huge comic book movie fan. Fox has now technically screwed this up 4x including the "never released" movie, Don't you think it'd time for them to "let Marvel Studios try to salvage the Fantastic 4?"
and you are correct! the script was awfull,the executives midled and fuck things up johnny being black is the least of the problems this trainwreck of a film had. and it is a problem beacuse they changed the skin color to pander to blacks,to sel tickets. they executives wealthy people dont CARE ABOUT BLACK PEOPLE...THEY NEVER DID,THEY ARE PANDERING TO BLACKS TO SELL MOVIE TICKETS! its always been like that.and you are buying that propaganda and normalizing it as being "ok" when you should be furios ,and claim for the studios making blacks superheroes (wich exist)
The FF can be great in the comics but they're hard to translate into movies, even hard to translate well as comic book stories, although the Lee-Kirby team, John Byrne, and Walt Simonson had some really good runs. A larger-than-life team of ground breaking silver age sci-fi adventure characters who didn't bother to keep their identities secret, and didn't even wear super-hero costumes for their first few issues, back in 1961 or whenever it was, they're something different.
MrVecau there was no need to cast Michael B Jordan as Johnny Storm. He is a tremendous actor for his age, but the role of Johnny Storm is clearly a white, blonde young man, as Chris Evans played him earlier. Marvel has so many black or yet unseen characters Jordan could be-Prodigy (both characters), Rocket Racer, the Anarchist, Patriot, The Fixer etc Making him the 'token black guy' really upsets the team's motif of being a family, as Sue is suddenly the adopted one (for no reason) and the 'brother' seems to be Ben Grimm.
THE REAL REASON THE FILM FLOPPED! This should serve as a warning, diversity has it's place. When it comes to obscure comic book characters you can be a gender bender, or swap ethincity....BUT when it comes to PREMIER CHARACTERS...that method is a NO NO! When this gets brought up folks are quick to call you racist, well for the record I'm African American, and I was raised on Marvel comics, I have an extensive collection down to this day, when I saw they made the Human Torch, one of the most beloved characters in the Marvel Universe, a African American I knew the reboot was doomed to failure! Folks deny it, some are ridiculed for speaking on it, but it's the truth, and if you think that had nothing to do with it's failure then let Marvel, Disney, Sony, whoever....make Spider-man black, or latino, and see what happens. Or better yet make Black Panther white and see the backlash that follows. There are plenty of African American superheroes to choose from, OR just be original and create one, but swapping ethincities isn't DIVERSITY it's just plain LAZY!
+jdilly1000 Yeah, it did seem forced. And, for some reason still-white Sue was adopted, meaning that her and the Human Torch weren't blood related... which just felt wrong and annoyed me more (as in, why didn't they even bother to match the races?). Then again, the film was just really shitty writing, acting, pacing and all the stuff Comicbookgirl said. I agree the race-swapping thing is getting out of hand. DC made Wally West, ginger and freckled, black and then give him a stereotypical "troubles-with-da-law', 'hates the Flash' and 'dad walked out on me' backstory - like, WTF?
First video I seen from Comicbookgirl. You are by far better than Jeramy Johns and other reviewers. You don't edit at every sentence which is very annoying. You have much talent girl. Keep up the good job. I'm following and liking now.
comicbookgirl19 Hey, CBG… Something I always loved about that version of "Island of Dr. Moreau" is that this huge meta-film is happening: a documentary within the fiction. The actors in the film are basically playing themselves in the production! You have Moreau, who is nuts, played by Brando, who is _genuinely_ nuts. Montgomery is just dancing while the world dies, as played by Kilmer, who's basically phoning it in and just breaking the fourth wall. And then there's Douglass, trying to make sense of it all, played by Thewlis, who's clearly as trapped in this insane production as his character is on the Island, nearly mad with disbelief at what he's gotten into!! x^D One of the most epic "meta-movies" ever!! ;^P
I think the biggest problem is that Fox is still completely submerged in that old mentality of "we have to make changes" that existed before technology allowed filmmakers to match the source material exactly, no matter how outrageous. Marvel films does well because they try to keep even the goofiest aspects (flying aircraft carrier, anyone?) and only shy away of the actually troublesome material, like how they avoided making a movie about wife beater Hank Pym. Respect the source material, and you'll at least have the core fans of the franchise on your side. Make too many changes and you run the risk of alienating everybody. Oh, and don't tell the internet what to do. BAD move.
Woah!!! I'm sorry to say I have not watched your material before - a real failure on my part. Just going from the three of your videos I have now seen I *hugely* enjoy. You bring the authenticity to your commentary from a grounding in the 'real' paper and ink comic world without allowing that to alienate those like me who have only really been involved with the stories in the post-Iron Man/MCE days. I look forward to watching your more general SF/Genre reviews next. Subscribed!!!
I really enjoyed it as a sci-fi horror movie. But it feels nothing like the Fantastic Four, except as some dark Elseworlds tale. Ironically the few lighter, superhero bits they tried to force in towards the end are what feel totally wrong in the film.
Once again you hit the nail on the head! Funniest reaction was a kid behind me after an hour into the movie said "Daddy why aren't they doing super hero things". I wanted to say good question kid.
Comicbookgirl19, I watched Fantastic Four today, and I liked it. I think it was because I watched your review first. I did wonder where Dr. Doom got a cape, my son and I speculated it must have been the american flag left behind. I kept thinking Harvey Elder was Samuel Sterns. I didn't think it was very cool, that three of the four that took the first trip were drunk, not a good message to send to children. There was a few things I think they could have added after they came back and during the "year later". I liked every one's performances; the family dynamic of the Storms, the special effects for the Thing and his voice, I even liked Reed Richards. but for the most part, I enjoyed it. Perhaps it was because I already knew what to expect, that I didn't have to be disappointed while I was watching it, and I was able to enjoy it for it's own interpretation.
Chronicle.Josh Tranks 1st film. Was done on $5million. Fox wanted to do the new Fantastic Four film on a low Budget. Chronicle was considered by some to be in the genre as Fantastic Four. Fox Were hoping Trank could recreate the Magic for the new Fantastic Four film on a low budget, that he did with Chronicle. Trank was hoping he would have a bigger budget. The Fantastic Four film was done with a $120million budget. I believe Trank was hoping for a budget of more like $200million. I believe some directors can go from small budgets to big budgets. Mathew Vaughan for instance did Layer Cake for a small budget. Then he did Stardust (probably not the next example) to X-men First class. A lot of people have had a go at the tone of Fantastic Four.But the main person behind Fox's films at the moment is Simon Kinberg. He is also behind the current crop of X-men films. So he has to take some of the blame for Fantastic Fours failure. You say Trank with the casts biggest problem was with Kate Mara.But I heard he actually got into a physical fight with Miles Teller, so they didn't get along to well. Trank got pulled from the Star Wars film after it came out about the damage to the place he was staying in.
I remember going to see this movie on opening day and being totally disappointed by it. There is no way you can make a superhero movie be successful with only a running time of an hour and 40 minute. Every viewpoint that you bring up comic book girl 19 is absolutely correct. However there is something I disagree with you about the first hour of the film is not watchable. However the first 20 minutes of the movie is. And the video clips that you showed a fan reaction is pretty amazing. On a personal level I am a disabled individual and I drove my wheelchair from my apartment all the way into the next towns to see this movie and when I was driving back I was so upset that I was talking to myself all the way home because I was so mad and disappointed. I often wonder if we will ever see Josh's version of the film. Keep up the good work young lady really enjoy your videos.
From a doomed production enthusiast to another, you should do more "Factors to Disaster" videos, even if just to make people interested in watching documentaries about said theme. It's interesting af.
Soon as I heard about the drama involved my interest was immediately perked and I spent several hours with google figuring out what was going on. You are right, this shit is totally interesting, and its nearly as fun learning how the drama llama unfolds in something so complex, as watching a good movie.
It's funny to hear you talk about "smashing a few walls with a sledgehammer" as $100k in damages. Most houses around the country aren't even worth $100k, meaning he would have demolished around 1.5 houses. But the house value in CA is very high. (Edit) $100k is probably the maximum for my renter's insurance; it's probably the max for their renter's insurance too. Costs about $170/year for that much coverage.
You know, this whole thing about the new FF movie is kind of ironic and sad at the same time. I mean, if I'm correct, the FF were a pretty heavy revolution in the comic-book industry back in the 60's. They opened the gate for most of the other Marvel heroes, and they set new up ways to tell those kind of tale, making the characters more relatable, unlike the DC heroes. They were the icons the Marvel Comics! And now there's just......This. Not even counting the movie, I think they're still some of the most unpopular super heroes to the eyes of the large public.
This movie was so bad. I went to see it with my family and we waited around until the very end in the dying hope of a post credits scene to save us from the hell we had just witnessed, and turns out there was none. Like half the fucking theater was in there waiting. It was so depressing that the movie theater crew actually stood by the door and handed out Bear paw treats as a consolation for having sat through that steaming pile of garbage on screen. To this day I've never felt so much shame as I did when I received that bear paw brownie from the movie theater crew.
This movie would have been helped a lot by not sidelining Kate Mara. Have the Fantastic Four go through the teleport together, and Doom gets messed up trying to save them. He's doesn't get powers, he just has a HUGE hate on the four of them because they're hailed as heroes (but are miserable because of their changes). You can do darker, you can do misanthropic, but you have to keep some of the sense of wonder that permeates the FF (which you could do without the goofiness).
I take your side regarding the tone. When they cut to reed being all stretched out and in pain with the Thing being this Rock monster I was like "Ok this is cool." (ALTHOUGH how they all get brought together is incredibly dumb.) I even liked the idea that they thought because Reed was in hiding that he'd abandoned them and Ben Hated him for it. Thats actually been an issue between them at various points in the comic. Then...garbage. No idea why. Just nonsense and credits roll. If you watch the main trailer theres a bunch of stuff cut out like Reed talking to Doom and Ben Fighting for the military in the Middle-east and getting really depressed and angry over it. I think there was a decent chance at this being a good FF movie, but hey its Fox I'm surprised Brett Ratner wasn't brought in at the last moment to fuck it up some more.
This drama would make a great documentary. It could be used at colleges for what warning signs to look for when you are working with a studio.
Yourinquirer I agree, maybe we will get on in a few decades when it's been long enough for the cast and crew to open up without damaging any ones current working reputation.
comicbookgirl19 A la Superman Lives?
comicbookgirl19 what about Superman Returns? Nobody even acknowledges that movie exists. What happened to that one?
comicbookgirl19 Do you think we'll ever get a director's cut of this? I would really have loved to see the original film that Fox apparently didn't like. I'm sensing it still would have been better than the final cut. I may be proven wrong (yet again) but would like to know nonetheless.
Jeremy Cantrell I think it just got superceded by the Man of Steel reboot and toy merchandising xtravaganza. S. Returns was a much better movie in almost every way but it was bogged down in continuity from the previous 4 Chris Reeve movies and left Superman as an angst-ridden middle-aged unmarried baby daddy continuity-wise; I was surprised to see Hollywood go with that angle from the get go.
there is an image comparing cosplay costumes of Dr Doom and Apocalypse to Fox' and it just makes me face-palm when fans with a small budget can make better looking costumes/designs than Fox can.
MrTelboy because they care about the source and authenticity and are fans... the other care money, getting a hardon from fulfilling some kind of artsy creative vision they think they have to do to stick out from the crowd, or just have no idea about the stuff in the first place and don't care enough in general to learn about it.
MrTelboy Wait till you see Apocalypse in the movie before saying they fucked it up, Singer has not made a lame looking X-Men character yet, so lets see it in action first.
MrTelboy Remember that X-Men Apocalypse is still filming. We won't know what he'll actually look like until the movie is out, after any visual effects are added on to him.
That's like saying AoU's Ultron looks like shit after seeing David Spader standing around in a puffy jacket and plastic Ultron headpiece while filming: bigonlinenews.com/wp-content/plugins/RSSPoster_PRO/cache/3568a_spl725137-013.jpg
Ed Mqz As a long time X-Men fan, i completely disagree with you.
Ed Mqz i grew up reading xmen comics and im not a fan of of the movies at all. i find them mediocre at best. frankly the non marvel marvel movies are dead to me
Dr doom looked like the the worlds most dangerous crash test dummy.
made my day 😄
I really appreciate you breaking down the factors and politics that lead to the failed production of F4, as it truly is fascinating. I'm so tired of hearing people bag on this movie, but can't explain why they think it's bad.
Epic History X-MEN Volume 2, The Phoenix Saga, is Now Available on Vimeo-On-Demand!
vimeo.com/ondemand/epichistoryxmenvol1
this movie so dog shit i mean it
Glad I don't really care for Fantastic Four enough to see any of the films all the way through. I still feel like it's unfilmable and they need to stop trying.
comicbookgirl19 It's nice to know that someone else shares my fascination with how bad movies get made. It seems like the word Intelligence keeps popping up everywhere these days (Worth: Financial Intelligence, The Economist Intelligence Unit, etc). I think you may have just invented Film Production Intelligence!
comicbookgirl19 Oh, and after seeing the incredible passion and creativity of your production (review/investigative report anyone?), I'll definitely be checking out Epic History.
comicbookgirl19 CBG19,...YOU'RE SUPER PRETTY! LOL and I cant wait for xmen vol 2, phoenix time :)
It's funny how with Deadpool, it seemed like Fox went "okay, let's spend very little, and not prison yard schiv the director's vision... let's just see what happens..."
When people talk about Kate Mara's wig it reminds me of what happened while making Samurai Cop.
Follow my Twitter - @MaxBezant LOL! Totes!
There's a reason why these studio get rookie directors to helm comic book movies. Because a Director like Steven Spielberg would have to power to lock the studio executive out of the process. The same reason Edgar Wright left Ant-Man is the same reason this director is up in arms, studio interference. The failure of the Fantastic Four is on Fox.
The big difference is that Marvel has a plan and knows that they are doing. They're up front creatively with their directors. Fox on the other hand appears to lack any sort of plan, are clueless, and ended up forcing Trank to make changes and alter previously agreed upon things after the two parties had already came to an agreement.
DOOMED ! It doesn't make a difference if marvel has a plan or not, because these studios will never hire an established director, like Steven Spielberg or a Quinton Tarantino to direct a comic book movie. These directors can and will include clauses in their contracts where they have full authority over the script, where they can literally close the entire movie set off to any and all studio executives, and they also can get what's known as Final Cut Privileges. Which means no re-editing by the studio, no re-writes, whatever that director shot is what ends up on the screen.
Marvel tried to push Joss Whedon around the same way, when his contract was up he took his money and left. The first Avengers movie he fought them on set every day and he got his way. Because of Whedons experience with Fox he knew how to keep the Marvel executives in line, so he got to keep the script the way he wrote it. But the Age of Ultron was a different story. Marvel re-edited that movie.
Trank falls into the category of Directors who got chewed up by studio system, the same as Edgar Wright with Marvel.
theylied1776 the problem here is that the directors themselves are associated with the franchise and not with any other. It was fine when Joss Whedon was essentially running the main Marvel universe, and Bryan Singer was doing the X-Men franchise for fox and Avi Arad was producing the Tobey Maguire Spiderman.
It went to pot when Fox and Sony started bringing in new people who they thought would allow them more control. The director of Ant-Man was lucky his movie was linked to the main Marvel Universe (giving it more potential), the movies linked to Fox are sinking heavily under the expectations of the studio (apart from the last two X-Men movies) but have nothing to support them. Fox is used to the trope of 'we must give the movie its own identity' ,something Whedon was careful not to overuse in the Avengers movies, as it is the death knell of any adaptation.
SantomPh Joss Whedon was not essentially running the main Marvel Universe. Whedon was an "advisor". If he were Marvel would have given him Final Cut Privileges. He never had that in his contract. Kevin Feige is the main showrunner, Marvel Cinematic Universe builder.
These studios pluck these little directors out of obscurity because they know they can control them.
So this is why you will never see a Steven Spielberg or Quentin Tarantino ever direct comic book movie. It comes down to how their contracts are written. This is why Edgar Wright walk away from Marvel.
+theylied1776 I agree with a lot of what you are saying but Marvel has hired established directors like Joe Johnston and Peyton Reed were established directors. If you mean iconic directors who's name alone sells tickets then there are very few of those to begin with and most would want to do their own projects.
I would say if Marvel/Disney gets the rights back this should be the next Netflix series.
skildren I just hope they get right not to use fantastic 4 team, but because then they can use dr Doom, silver surfer and galactus. Afterall, fantastic four team sucks.
goran77ish They would also get Kang The Conqueror back.
skildren i dont see fantastic 4s themes and storys working on low budget tv. it needs good top professional special fx
skildren I like Daredevil, don't get me wrong, but you can tell at a lot of points they are extremely limited in budget and are working around it. For example, a lot of episodes are basically "stand around in one or two locations talking" which is not bad but you can tell the reason why is for cost.
You can't do this with the Fantastic Four at all, not everything can be an ongoing series.
skildren That would be great. Let's hope that this movie sinks like Megatron in the Laurentian Abyss at the end of the first Transformers movie.
Fox claims they're still "committed" to the license, but I bet their hold will probably be broken by 2017. >:D
I strongly suspect that the house was some 20 million dollar estate and one wall had a couple holes in it ($75,000), one couch was chewed ($8,000), one big mirror broken ($3,000), etc, etc
Number 9-Fox has zero regard or respect for the source material. I don't mean they should take the comic and use it as a straight script. But Fox (and Sony) have no idea what makes these characters (or superheroes in general) great. They see a stretchy guy, a flamey guy, a rock guy, and an invisible gal, and proceed to make generic action/sci fi movies with zero substance. The cast of FF was even told to stay away from the comics. My question is, why? All it's going to do is show the actors why the characters are so iconic.
If the rights go back to Marvel, which is a sincere hope of mine, Marvel will have essentially a ruined franchise on their hands. They would definitely not be able to make a FF movie (not that they aren't capable, but it'd be a HUGE risk). Their best bet would be to introduce the FF in another movie (Avengers consult the FF for dealing with Thanos, etc.).
Anyways, this movie was screwed from jump street and it just goes to show you that studios don't make what fans want to see, they make what they THINK fans want to see.
John Smith Fox is (like its news channels) working with the trope that "what we do is correct, because it feels original and edgy". The Fantastic Four should be exploring the Negative Zone, fighting Annhilus (a way more appropriate villain for the movies), dealing with cosmic events etc. The FF are Marvel's science team, not necessarily an alien/demon/terrorist bashing squad like the Avengers. This is wasted potential.
We don't need another Doctor Doom mishap and more importantly, we don't need a recolored Johnny Storm- Marvel has precious few true brother-sister combinations, they were among the best in the comic verse.
+John Smith I'm guessing that Fox will likely allow themselves to lose the rights. They have three bad FF movies (I didn't think the first one was THAT bad, personally) and one of them was a reboot. Even after they started fresh, they still did not have success with the property. They probably feel at this point that Fantastic Four is not a bankable franchise and will let Marvel have it back. Although, I agree that Marvel probably wouldn't be able to make an FF movie, as they would feel it would too risky. As you said, they will essentially have a ruined franchise on their hands. The public perception of the Fantastic Four is not very good.
Modern Fantastic Four is best when they are exploring crazy science things and dealing with family relationships. I would love them to skip an origin and jump straight into a Future Foundation movie.
Adamatronamus There was a script going around a few years ago that was like that. More a fake documentary type that starts after they were active for many years. Sounded a great way to do this. Had newsreel footage style of the fights.
When you really think about what the Fantastic Four is and what the book started out as, imagining the FF as a type of sci-fi body horror super hero genre mashup film seems to be the logical direction to take it. I feel like that's where the film was actually headed until Fox got freaked out and interfered.
DOOMED ! Yeah. That's why I clarified by saying modern FF. The body horror stuff sounds neat if they could commit, but it seems they felt obligated to end it like all the other super hero movies. It can't be both!
DOOMED ! That's why I blame Fox for the rushed ending. The movie feels like a great and new interpretation away from the goofiness of the last FF movies. They should've left it as it originally was intended like Trank and the writers wished.
Agreed.
The Incredibles is the best Fantastic-4 movie so far.
Why do they insist on making Dr. Doom a mutant or some kind of aberration? why can't he be that Mage-Genius that we all know?
+VanFanel1980mx Because he is an aberration. and he's brilliant. But, that's not enough, so they made him a powerful magic user, too! Comic writers are full of some pretty terrible ideas.
+VanFanel1980mx Fox has one of the greatest villains in comic book history... so naturally, they keep trying to recreate him as something trendy and fashionable, which is ALWAYS going to fail. DOOM does not care for fashion. DOOM does not care for trends. DOOM is awesome because he is DOOM.
Silver Dragon I don't think they were going for fashionable when they went with the whole suit melded with his skin thing.
He does look fairly similar to the ultimate universe version of Doom (with the light peeking out through his armor and such).
It's hard to deal with that green cape/cloak/cowl and take the guy seriously though.
zero11010 why the need to "take seriously"? is a super hero movie, I don't go to the theater to analyze and be a pretentious pseudo-artist who can't just enjoy a piece of entertainment, I just want to see my comic book characters on the big screen.
VanFanel1980mx Well, since the 60's he's had the same ridiculous green hood/cloak/robe/cowl. Most characters made at that time look pretty ridiculous by today's standards (I suspect they looked pretty ridiculous by the standards of the day, too).
My ability to recognize absurd art direction has nothing to do with my ability or inability to enjoy a piece of entertainment for what it is. You're making poor assumptions.
I enjoy how natural and "real" this channel is at times (simple things like scratching your nose not being cut out). But there's still something adorable about symmetrical arm movements.
I guess i won't be seeing it.Sounds like this one is making the older ones look good.
julienhmulder It's worth a watch actually, but u can see it online.
Not in the sense of quality, just curiosity on what worked and didn't work. I mean the half the reason the film is a disaster is that it is a build up that doesn't get paid off in the end. And the build up isn't too bad
julienhmulder I believe it's worth watching for the first hour or so, after that you may aswell walk out.
julienhmulder You could watch the first hour (Up until the one year later comes up) and then just create a bether ending in your head...
julienhmulder It is watchable. And I agree with comicbook girl on everything. Movie was decent untill that 1 year later part. Looked like slow more serious buildup for epic midle and finale. And movie is bad when buildup is way better then anything else. If they just continued that story movie would be OK. Not great movie, but Ok superhero movie.
julienhmulder It's still better than the older ones. Those ones are disgraces.
enjoyed the x-man volume too. definitely worth the price. hope there will be more in the future. would support a patreon for more history on other superheros
Catwoman is a better watch even though it's a worse movie than Fantastic Four. The biggest issue, which affected the entire movie(even the first half) is that it's joyless. It's too dumb to be a real Kronenberg-esque horror(they get their powers by getting drunk. Come on!). It's too tame to be real body horror due to it's PG 13 rating. It's not fun enough to be a Fantastic Four movie, or a comic book movie in general. It's too somber to be a "so bad it's funny" movie. No matter what form of entertainment that you are looking, this movie will find a way to disappoint you. Catwoman on the other hand is at least a comedy of errors. You can have a good time picking it apart and making fun of it.
Really love that you explain so much about how movie production works behind the scenes, makes me look at an entirely new way to movies :)
The Fantasticar being taken out actually explains a lot of the weird moments in the movie where'd they spend a lot of time showing Sue and Johnny flying the team to different places.
Chad Quandt Absolutely! Watching her fly them around in the bubble seemed super awkward to me and T-Bone!
comicbookgirl19 These were some excellent points. Especially the lack of middle budget movies.
Disney/Pixar already showed that it can handle the Fantastic Four by re-titling it "The Incredibles" :)
Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. Yeah there are a lot of similar events between IODM and FF. It's kind of eerie.
The minute I read that it sucked I thought "Hm, what does comicbookgirl19 have to say about it?". :) I guess I'm officially a fan.
this is the comicbook girl i subscribed to years ago. i want more content like this please.
Outside of Jessica Alba being terrible, I didn't hate the first two Fantastic Four movies. I think the main problem with all of the Fox comic movies, outside of Deadpool, is that they don't plan anything out. There's no outline or long-term story planning going on. It's all fly-by-the-seat-of-their-pants writing/directing. The continuity issues that come up with X-Men are staggering. It's not difficult to write an X-Men/F4/Deadpool universe. It isn't. There's so much there that intertwines.
And if you write something good, there's no reason you can't collaborate with Disney/MCU on some projects (or have a character exchange of sorts like MCU has setup with Sony). House of M would be sooo good down the road, post-Infinity War.
What really happened is that Trank crumbled under pressure and couldn't be find common ground with Simon Kinberg, this was also why he left Star Wars. Kinberg is running the Star Wars films over at Disney, but he also runs Fox's Marvel properties. He produced Fantastic Four and he was grooming Trank to be the next JJ/Joss/Singer but Trank isn't that guy.
Trank trashed the house he was renting in late 2014. That's around the time that Fox was applying pressure on the film, reshoots took place and Fox was trying to figure out how to salvage the movie. This is why there is so much proof of an entirely different movie out there floating in the either.
There are currently 11-15 shots in trailers around the world that just don't exist in the film. There's also photos of Johnny's Car becoming the Fantasticar and the team using it to travel to and escape from Planet Zero
This is a film that much like the TMNT remake was sabotaged by the studio listening to geek outrage. Jamie Bell shouldn't be Ben Grimm? Ok lets basically cut his relationship with Reed out of the movie. Von Doom can't be Domachev so let's ADR over every mention of his name and reorganize his character. Doom was originally a hacker and conspiracy theorist/survivalist/doomsday bunker nut. Changed due to fan outrage.
More and more people condemned the dark nature of the film's advertising and the photos that were getting leaked out and suddenly we have a film that shifts half way through into an action film.
Also the studio lost all faith in the film, cutting it's 3D conversion because the version being converted wasn't the one they were going to release. As it was, the film didn't need a conversion because there's very little action that would take advantage of 3D conversion or a few 3D native shots that they had in the woods.
This is what happens when you micromanage of a movie to shit, when you listen to what fans THINK they want rather than going with a director's vision.
As you said, the first like half of the film isn't necessarily bad. It's when the studio stepped in, did reshoots (that WIG) and the movie turned into generic schlock.
The dogs could have knocked over one REALLY expensive Vase... #LaserPointerDestruction
EccentricInTexas KISS KISS FALL IN LOVE!
Spot on about the lack of experience and power these young and mostly unproven 'blockbuster' directors have. I think many have barely got through their baptisms of fire over the years by the skin of their teeth whilst the unlucky few get, unfairly, crucified. Learning a craft is becoming a forgotten art. You're expected to hit the ground running and if you fall, well tough fucking shit! You're out!
Can we petition for the original cut ! I want to see the car!!!!!!! :/ I really enjoyed the horror theme it had going in the beginning
Kelham Mozley Same here. Really want to see the director's cut. They owe us that much. :(
TfaChicky Trank dug his own grave with that tweet. And trashing that condo. And, come to think of it, that original cut. It can't have been much better than the garbage they eventually spewed out with that second half, but it probably wouldn't be much worse. Ah well, we'll probably never know!
I loved the doc Lost Souls. Watched it before I came across your channel. But since you mentioned it, i have to ask...
What did you think of Richard Stanley's Hardware?
I fucking love that movie!
Have you ever done a retro review on it?
Factor # 0...the script. That was in NO WAY a F4 script. You can make a Cronenberg superhero movie, it's not going to be a big seller but you can make it. But that is not what the Fantastic Four is all about.
Even those demon dogs from Ghostbusters couldnt even do $100,000 worth of damage!
10 weird tricks to not fuck up a superhero movie that millionaires don't want you to know and your girlfrend will hate, the third one will shock you.
Step 1. don't be FOX
Step 2. be MARVEL
Step 3........welp.....ref 1. and 2. and ah......screw it, that about dose it.... those are some solid steps, were good there.
In my group of friends, this depiction of doom is know as "Cyber Caillou"
I didn't even tried to go watch this film but I find very interesting how into the topic you are, really enjoyed the video, you shine in it and that makes the review very entertaining
I totally agree with the comment about movie directors and how they only get to direct really low budget movies or big huge blockbusters. TV has really taken over the movies that used to be mid budget things and directors from there should probably be where Hollywood should be looking for talent. An obvious example would be the Russo brothers, they started out in TV (most notably Arrested Development and Community) and then moved on to big blockbusters with Marvel.
It really is amazing how the quality of TV shows across the board has risen in the last 10 years both from a production standpoint but also the talent working there.
Great review, just a comment, sometimes movies are successfull overseas not because people dont know, now with internet everybody knows everything, but because fo taste. Pacific Rim was almost a failure in the US (very unfair for such a grat movie), but in Asia was a big success.
alfaecotangoromeo Different cultures create different preferences.
+alfaecotangoromeo Pacific Rim was a big success in Asia because it’s a good movie.
+Lenia N. Ldzn The live-action mecha movie fans had been waiting for. Nothing more and nothing less
She does have a point. Most movies today are big budget franchise, animated films, Oscar bait or indies. There really aren't that many 30-60 movies anymore.
I'm surprised you didn't mention the fact that Marvel cancelled the Fantastic Four comic shortly after the movie was announced. (Of course, I'm using the term "shortly" kind of loosely.)
Rodrigo Hernández maybe it because they don't have the right to movie that why they cancel it.
+Sophia Wilson i don't think that's the reason. The last fantastic four comic that was released didn't do so well selling under 45,000. The fantastic four comics aren't that popular and that's the reason marvel sold it to fox to begin with!
TheLouis3877 +Sophia Wilson You are correct, but FF has always been considered one of Marvel's flagship franchises, and between the low sales, which also have a lot to do with how Marvel promoted it, and the rights dispute, the comic was canceled, but even critically well received comics like Future Foundation, which could be considered part of the FF family were cancelled. I'm saying Marvel can be very petty and I think this just goes to confirm this.
+chaos123x it sold under 45,000 and I mean really under it didn't do as well as other marvel comics. But there's no surprise since those comics aren't popular.
This review is great. I love videos like this that talk about the production side of movies that had a troublesome production.
I just hate that kid actor, in the middle of the Poster. Can't stand him. "Miles Teller" is his name apparently . Hated him in every movie he ever played.
Michael009 dude was perfect in whiplash. great movie.
Jabba U indeed. he always came off as a giant d-bag and really rude. Always playing the same asshat character. But I'll be damned if he wasnt fantastic in whiplash :P
Michael009 he has such a punchable face.
Michael009 Do u mean the young Reed Richards actor?
Really? I think the cast they choose for this film was (hehe) fantastic. The movie didnt turn out so good tho...
I think Fantastic Four made Deadpool possible. Fox and Simon Kinberg were so caught up with Josh Tranks work, that Tim Miller and the gang could get away with the movie as it is. I can't see FOX making a movie with a strap-on in it. That bloody montage.
This is actually really fascinating
I remembered the moment my mate finished downloading the First Fantastic Four movie, and was ready to publicly show it to his family and then.. we instantly realize that it was the Original F4, we couldn't stop laughing at how ridiculous it was. We just skimmed it, and carried on looking for the other one.. although, not even that movie was worth pirating. =/
My favourite scene in the Original F4 was when they were about to leave for their "mission", and the Maid (I think) stopped them at the stairs and said, "Ohhh, just look at you guys.. The Fantastic Four." Hahahahahaha, god, that was such a drenched with cheese moment. =D
Will CGB and Crazy Robot every see how perfect they are for each other??
Weirdly what came to mind for me watching this was Ang Lee's Hulk movie in that Director you wouldn't think of gets to play with comic character you know. Hulk wouldn't be made now but it's the only Hulk movie to come out that actually looks at the personal story with Banner, not "how cool Hulk's smashing stuff up". There's an intervew out there somewhere where Ang Lee talks about his discussion with the Film company and h'es asking them "I@m Ang Lee, you do now I'm going to make my own film here" and the film company almost fobbing him off because the want him making it. I think it's sad this kind of film won't happen again without some film execs intervening if it doesn't go their way, like it looks like happened with Fantastic 4. We'll never personally know how good/ bad the director original film was but I think it would have been interesting.
My friends wanted to watch Mission Impossible but I dragged them to this movie. After we left the theater I gave them the ticket money back because it was soooooooooooooooooooooooo shit.
There were at least 2 major action sequences originally promised to Trank that were later cut from the budget. The dog damage occurred before the loss of the Star Wars film, and actually it's quite common to continue script re-writes through the pre-production process as well as occasionally throughout filming. Good examples of this are present in films like The Rock and Armageddon, where they were actually writing the script while filming. Hard to not hold Trank partially responsible as well though considering his behavior on twitter as well as on set. Certainly sounds like it was a mess all the way around with blame to be shared by all. :(
Not everyone agrees this movie is terrible, I actually liked a lot!
You're right. Only 91% of people dislike it. 9% represent!
Piratearicat it was good up to part they all go to stop Dr. Doom from ending the world.
Piratearicat I was actually really into it until those last 15 minutes.
+Piratearicat No, but those people (including you) are in the minority. 92% of people hated it. The people who hated it vastly outweigh the people who liked it. Their voices speak louder. Therefore, it will be perceived as being a bad movie and people will generally try avoid it. I actually had predicted this movie was going to flop. It sounded horrible from the beginning, even before they started shooting it. I was not sold on Trank's vision at all. He blames the studio interfering with the film as the reason it failed. He claims he had a completely different movie that would have great. I personally doubt that. I don't think I would have liked it either way. This was the first time in a long time that I was not excited for a Marvel movie (or, in this case, a movie based on a Marvel property). I guess I'm glad I didn't bother with it.
Said no one ever
Really interesting to hear all the behind-the-scenes drama! Thanks for the breakdown and review.
Who else was bothered by Thing being naked?
yes!!! naked and no dick! !
My main problem with FF4 was the ages of Reed, Grimm and Doom.
I've always believed they should have been in their 40s.
Now if they wanted these 3 to play in flashback scenes fine, but to be made believable these three should have been in their 40s. Doesn't matter to me who was older amongst the 3.
Dr. Doom looks like a Michael Bay Cybertronian "Trash Heap" from Fraggle Rock.
I've been on a documentary kick since your last video talking about electric boogaloo. I went and watched that doc. And I loved it. So I came back to watch this video again, as I do with a lot of your vids., and I forgot about your recommendation for lost soul. Netflix and prime have so many docs. It was hard to search thru all of them. Long comment short I'm glad I watched this again because you give the BEST recommendations for movies that people may not be aware of. Your the bees knees baby!
Pit bulls are great dogs...
I know! I grew up with Staffordshire Bull Terrier named Conan, similar breed, totally rad dog....who also fucked up the fence and the glass sliding door with his head. I had mad love for the pit bulls homie ;)
comicbookgirl19 Why is Robot's voice different?
comicbookgirl19 lol btw how old are you? You sound like you grew up/went to HS or College in the 90 like me, but you do not look that old. Although I do not either. lol ;)
+Paul S ...to kill people.
no they're not
18:50 pretty much me while playing Mass Effect 3 before Shepard gets lifted up to the starchild.
I feel bad for the actors.
When The Thing says "It's clobberin' time" during the end sequence, I physically flinched....so bad.
Are the plopcasts ever coming back? :(
I actually really liked kate mara, i think she fit the THEME of the movie well. She made a good invisible woman for the kind of movie they made lol
I watched it, wasn't terrible. I am so not a fan of the fantastic four, but it looked more sci-fi and less goofy to me which had me hooked. I enjoyed it quite a bit despite not agreeing with a lot of the changes that were made, I gave it a chance and I'm happy I did. What I see, is a lot of people jumping on the bandwagon, which happens way to much these days.
***** finally a smart man I like the movie too, I thought it bit rushed at the third act, but I like darker tone of movie.
Sophia Wilson People seem to bandwagon more today than ever. Not many people will think for themselves for anything these days. I loved the darker tone, and it did seem rushed towards the end but I'm glad I went to see it.
+bibby42 You know you can like what you want. Trank seems to be a real douche though. Even if the studio was giving him grief there were too many people saying how he was rude to the cast and crew and was high and drunk most of the time. Yeah that will make for a great movie. In any event I read a tweet that is allegedly by Trank. Where he basically said if you were a fan of the comic book then this movie was not for you. WTF are you doing making a Fantastic 4 movie then? It seems that he was trying to make "Chronicle 2" when he was suppose to be making F4. And then the studio stepped in. I wanted to see a F4 movie. So this movie stunk.
Chronicle > FF4
Just finished watching Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley's Island of Dr. Moreau as per your recommendation. Some of the best behind the scenes fuckery and commentary I've ever seen! Hopefully someday they'll make a documentary about this shit storm of a movie.
Am i the only one who thinks that the fantasticar would have been fucking awesome
yes, the Documentary of Lost Souls is so helpful for people who never knew how bad movie productions can be.
Fox has always sucked at character design.
She's right with her initial analysis. The first hour of this film was very chilling and gripping. The scenes with young Reed and Ben (very Spielberg in their approach) all up to the horror of all four dealing with their body changes were very well crafted. But you can tell where the studio interference occurs. And it falls from there. Trank pretty much got David Fincher-ed by FOX. But hopefully like Fincher, he will take time out, then come back with a film in which he will be lauded.
Black Johnny Storm. P.C. nonsense!
Great explanation and It helps me better understand the issues involved as a huge comic book movie fan.
Fox has now technically screwed this up 4x including the "never released" movie, Don't you think it'd time for them to "let Marvel Studios try to salvage the Fantastic 4?"
johny storm was black,thats number 9 of factor to disaster
Hahajejeje NOT TRUE IT MADE NO Difference.
he was black and johny storm is white
thats a difference,like...a whole different skin color
Hahajejeje maybe to you it made a difference. No one have says it sucks because Johnny Storm was black. You know what? I think you are a troll.
and you are correct!
the script was awfull,the executives midled and fuck things up
johnny being black is the least of the problems this trainwreck of a film had.
and it is a problem beacuse they changed the skin color to pander to blacks,to sel tickets.
they executives wealthy people dont CARE ABOUT BLACK PEOPLE...THEY NEVER DID,THEY ARE PANDERING TO BLACKS TO SELL MOVIE TICKETS!
its always been like that.and you are buying that propaganda and normalizing it as being "ok" when you should be furios ,and claim for the studios making blacks superheroes (wich exist)
Hahajejeje oh boy! no comment
The FF can be great in the comics but they're hard to translate into movies, even hard to translate well as comic book stories, although the Lee-Kirby team, John Byrne, and Walt Simonson had some really good runs. A larger-than-life team of ground breaking silver age sci-fi adventure characters who didn't bother to keep their identities secret, and didn't even wear super-hero costumes for their first few issues, back in 1961 or whenever it was, they're something different.
So.. It wasn't the black guy's fault the movie sucked? Nerds got all butt hurt about his casting.
MrVecau there was no need to cast Michael B Jordan as Johnny Storm. He is a tremendous actor for his age, but the role of Johnny Storm is clearly a white, blonde young man, as Chris Evans played him earlier. Marvel has so many black or yet unseen characters Jordan could be-Prodigy (both characters), Rocket Racer, the Anarchist, Patriot, The Fixer etc
Making him the 'token black guy' really upsets the team's motif of being a family, as Sue is suddenly the adopted one (for no reason) and the 'brother' seems to be Ben Grimm.
SantomPh Johnny Storm was always the token character anyway. It's not that big of a deal.
MrVecau that was the first indicator that it would be a corporate bullshit machine.
MrVecau ofcouse it was a factor. We just don't talk about it, because we must have our tokenism.
He's a great actor and played the character perfectly. Only autists make a big deal about race like it matters.
Really like the new talkshow vibe, especially that space brain has more lines. Keep up the good work.
THE REAL REASON THE FILM FLOPPED! This should serve as a warning, diversity has it's place. When it comes to obscure comic book characters you can be a gender bender, or swap ethincity....BUT when it comes to PREMIER CHARACTERS...that method is a NO NO! When this gets brought up folks are quick to call you racist, well for the record I'm African American, and I was raised on Marvel comics, I have an extensive collection down to this day, when I saw they made the Human Torch, one of the most beloved characters in the Marvel Universe, a African American I knew the reboot was doomed to failure! Folks deny it, some are ridiculed for speaking on it, but it's the truth, and if you think that had nothing to do with it's failure then let Marvel, Disney, Sony, whoever....make Spider-man black, or latino, and see what happens. Or better yet make Black Panther white and see the backlash that follows. There are plenty of African American superheroes to choose from, OR just be original and create one, but swapping ethincities isn't DIVERSITY it's just plain LAZY!
I don't disagree with you, but that's not why this movie tanked
I respect your opinion brother.
+jdilly1000 Yeah, it did seem forced. And, for some reason still-white Sue was adopted, meaning that her and the Human Torch weren't blood related... which just felt wrong and annoyed me more (as in, why didn't they even bother to match the races?). Then again, the film was just really shitty writing, acting, pacing and all the stuff Comicbookgirl said.
I agree the race-swapping thing is getting out of hand. DC made Wally West, ginger and freckled, black and then give him a stereotypical "troubles-with-da-law', 'hates the Flash' and 'dad walked out on me' backstory - like, WTF?
+jdilly1000 Completely agree, I'd be pissed if they made a blonde haired blue eyed Storm. There's just no reason to change existing characters.
I could watch your videos for hours! Really liking this channel:))
The main question remains, why is the Human Torch black?
Why was Susan a Latina in the last film?
Well, Alba's hotness actually made me overlook that little error. Bravo for spotting it!
***** That wasn´t really an issue when you watch the movie...
PunishedHawk fury is white in the 616 (main) universe but he's black in the ultimate universe
The Commenter Jessica Alba is the less latin latina in the history of latinos.
First video I seen from Comicbookgirl. You are by far better than Jeramy Johns and other reviewers. You don't edit at every sentence which is very annoying. You have much talent girl. Keep up the good job. I'm following and liking now.
comicbookgirl19 Hey, CBG… Something I always loved about that version of "Island of Dr. Moreau" is that this huge meta-film is happening: a documentary within the fiction. The actors in the film are basically playing themselves in the production! You have Moreau, who is nuts, played by Brando, who is _genuinely_ nuts. Montgomery is just dancing while the world dies, as played by Kilmer, who's basically phoning it in and just breaking the fourth wall. And then there's Douglass, trying to make sense of it all, played by Thewlis, who's clearly as trapped in this insane production as his character is on the Island, nearly mad with disbelief at what he's gotten into!! x^D
One of the most epic "meta-movies" ever!! ;^P
I think the biggest problem is that Fox is still completely submerged in that old mentality of "we have to make changes" that existed before technology allowed filmmakers to match the source material exactly, no matter how outrageous. Marvel films does well because they try to keep even the goofiest aspects (flying aircraft carrier, anyone?) and only shy away of the actually troublesome material, like how they avoided making a movie about wife beater Hank Pym. Respect the source material, and you'll at least have the core fans of the franchise on your side. Make too many changes and you run the risk of alienating everybody.
Oh, and don't tell the internet what to do. BAD move.
Woah!!!
I'm sorry to say I have not watched your material before - a real failure on my part. Just going from the three of your videos I have now seen I *hugely* enjoy. You bring the authenticity to your commentary from a grounding in the 'real' paper and ink comic world without allowing that to alienate those like me who have only really been involved with the stories in the post-Iron Man/MCE days. I look forward to watching your more general SF/Genre reviews next.
Subscribed!!!
You do such an amazing job with your reviews.
I really enjoyed it as a sci-fi horror movie. But it feels nothing like the Fantastic Four, except as some dark Elseworlds tale. Ironically the few lighter, superhero bits they tried to force in towards the end are what feel totally wrong in the film.
Once again you hit the nail on the head! Funniest reaction was a kid behind me after an hour into the movie said "Daddy why aren't they doing super hero things". I wanted to say good question kid.
Comicbookgirl19, I watched Fantastic Four today, and I liked it. I think it was because I watched your review first.
I did wonder where Dr. Doom got a cape, my son and I speculated it must have been the american flag left behind.
I kept thinking Harvey Elder was Samuel Sterns.
I didn't think it was very cool, that three of the four that took the first trip were drunk, not a good message to send to children.
There was a few things I think they could have added after they came back and during the "year later".
I liked every one's performances; the family dynamic of the Storms, the special effects for the Thing and his voice, I even liked Reed Richards. but for the most part, I enjoyed it.
Perhaps it was because I already knew what to expect, that I didn't have to be disappointed while I was watching it, and I was able to enjoy it for it's own interpretation.
Chronicle.Josh Tranks 1st film. Was done on $5million. Fox wanted to do the new Fantastic Four film on a low Budget. Chronicle was considered by some to be in the genre as Fantastic Four. Fox Were hoping Trank could recreate the Magic for the new Fantastic Four film on a low budget, that he did with Chronicle. Trank was hoping he would have a bigger budget. The Fantastic Four film was done with a $120million budget. I believe Trank was hoping for a budget of more like $200million. I believe some directors can go from small budgets to big budgets. Mathew Vaughan for instance did Layer Cake for a small budget. Then he did Stardust (probably not the next example) to X-men First class. A lot of people have had a go at the tone of Fantastic Four.But the main person behind Fox's films at the moment is Simon Kinberg. He is also behind the current crop of X-men films. So he has to take some of the blame for Fantastic Fours failure. You say Trank with the casts biggest problem was with Kate Mara.But I heard he actually got into a physical fight with Miles Teller, so they didn't get along to well. Trank got pulled from the Star Wars film after it came out about the damage to the place he was staying in.
I remember going to see this movie
on opening day and being totally disappointed by it. There is no way you can make a superhero movie be successful with only a running time of an hour and 40 minute. Every viewpoint that you bring up comic book girl 19 is absolutely correct. However there is something I disagree with you about the first hour of the film is not watchable. However the first 20 minutes of the movie is. And the video clips that you showed a fan reaction is pretty amazing. On a personal level I am a disabled individual and I drove my wheelchair from my apartment all the way into the next towns to see this movie and when I was driving back I was so upset that I was talking to myself all the way home because I was so mad and disappointed. I often wonder if we will ever see Josh's version of the film. Keep up the good work young lady really enjoy your videos.
Lost Soul was very informative. I enjoyed it.
Thanks for the suggestion.
This is the Mystery Science Theatre of internet review shows. Well done!
Great video CBG19, i hope someday somebody makes a documentary about the making of this film.
From a doomed production enthusiast to another, you should do more "Factors to Disaster" videos, even if just to make people interested in watching documentaries about said theme. It's interesting af.
Lost Soul was great. I met Richard Stanley and had a drink with him in LA during one of my film's premiere. Interesting dude. Very nice.
Ps thNks for promoting kidcomp and nathan.. Seriously thats awesome
Soon as I heard about the drama involved my interest was immediately perked and I spent several hours with google figuring out what was going on. You are right, this shit is totally interesting, and its nearly as fun learning how the drama llama unfolds in something so complex, as watching a good movie.
It's funny to hear you talk about "smashing a few walls with a sledgehammer" as $100k in damages. Most houses around the country aren't even worth $100k, meaning he would have demolished around 1.5 houses. But the house value in CA is very high. (Edit) $100k is probably the maximum for my renter's insurance; it's probably the max for their renter's insurance too. Costs about $170/year for that much coverage.
You know, this whole thing about the new FF movie is kind of ironic and sad at the same time. I mean, if I'm correct, the FF were a pretty heavy revolution in the comic-book industry back in the 60's. They opened the gate for most of the other Marvel heroes, and they set new up ways to tell those kind of tale, making the characters more relatable, unlike the DC heroes. They were the icons the Marvel Comics! And now there's just......This. Not even counting the movie, I think they're still some of the most unpopular super heroes to the eyes of the large public.
This movie was so bad. I went to see it with my family and we waited around until the very end in the dying hope of a post credits scene to save us from the hell we had just witnessed, and turns out there was none. Like half the fucking theater was in there waiting. It was so depressing that the movie theater crew actually stood by the door and handed out Bear paw treats as a consolation for having sat through that steaming pile of garbage on screen. To this day I've never felt so much shame as I did when I received that bear paw brownie from the movie theater crew.
What weirded me out about this movie the most is that the thing doesn't wear pants
I dunno, as a former Jack Russell terrier owner I never underestimate how much destruction dogs can cause. Still loved him to pieces though!
This movie would have been helped a lot by not sidelining Kate Mara. Have the Fantastic Four go through the teleport together, and Doom gets messed up trying to save them. He's doesn't get powers, he just has a HUGE hate on the four of them because they're hailed as heroes (but are miserable because of their changes). You can do darker, you can do misanthropic, but you have to keep some of the sense of wonder that permeates the FF (which you could do without the goofiness).
Lost Soul is my favorite ever. I wish you would make a documentary about Fantastic Four!
I take your side regarding the tone. When they cut to reed being all stretched out and in pain with the Thing being this Rock monster I was like "Ok this is cool." (ALTHOUGH how they all get brought together is incredibly dumb.) I even liked the idea that they thought because Reed was in hiding that he'd abandoned them and Ben Hated him for it. Thats actually been an issue between them at various points in the comic. Then...garbage. No idea why. Just nonsense and credits roll. If you watch the main trailer theres a bunch of stuff cut out like Reed talking to Doom and Ben Fighting for the military in the Middle-east and getting really depressed and angry over it. I think there was a decent chance at this being a good FF movie, but hey its Fox I'm surprised Brett Ratner wasn't brought in at the last moment to fuck it up some more.