Why Studios Keep Making Fantastic Four Movies Despite Box Office Failures
SINGAPORE – Every decade or so, like a gambler stumbling towards the roulette tables of Las Vegas, Marvel bets millions of dollars on a Fantastic Four origin story.
The 2005 release starring Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Chris Evans and Michael Chiklis as members of the superhero team was a modest success, so a sequel followed in 2007. But that turned out to be a commercial disappointment, shutting the door on that cast.
A 2015 reboot crashed hard at the box office, taking the career of its director Josh Trank down with it, and it has yet to fully recover. Slammed by critics for being too grim, the doomed project starred Miles Teller, Michael B. Jordan, Kate Mara and Jamie Bell as the space explorers.
Now, a decade after that venture, audiences are getting a new version, The Fantastic Four: First Steps, which opens in Singapore cinemas on July 24.
Marvel has a passion for The Fantastic Four it has not shown for its other properties, such as The Punisher (its last iteration was released in 2008) or The Hulk (no solo film since 2008).
Why? Because there is a storytelling hole in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).
Ever since the old Avengers dissolved following the departures of Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr) and the previous Captain America (E vans) in Avengers: Endgame (2019), Marvel Studios has lacked an elite superhero team to match their audience-pulling power.
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But not for lack of trying. The last X-Men movie, Dark Phoenix (2019), tanked, as did two ensemble movies, Eternals (2021) and The Marvels (2023), sinking any chance of them acting as the new anchors for the MCU.
Marvel desperately needs a top-ranked fighting force, but not any old force. It must carry the MCU story deep into space, where the new cosmic threats live. Since Thanos the genocidal Titan was erased in Avengers: Endgame, the MCU's roster of epic villains has been blank.
Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors) was tested as the most evil person in the multiverse in Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania (2023), but that fizzled due to lack of audience interest and the American actor's conviction for assault that led the studio to sever ties with him.
Marvel has been eager to introduce new Thanos-level cosmic horrors, such as Galactus, the devourer of worlds. The new threats must enter the story organically, so what better way to do that than with an interstellar encounter with the space-faring crew of Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic (Pedro Pascal), Sue Storm/Invisible Woman (Vanessa Kirby), Ben Grimm/The Thing (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) and Johnny Storm/Human Torch (Joseph Quinn) in First Steps?
The fact that they are family – Reed and Sue are a married couple, Johnny is Sue's younger brother and Ben is Reed's best friend – is perfect because it opens the door to story arcs driven by love.
Cosmic threats need cosmic powers to counter them, and The Fantastic Four has them in spades. Scientific genius Reed, for example, can open portals into other dimensions, while Sue generates unbreakable defensive force fields. Johnny can erupt with the force of an exploding star and Ben can punch almost anything – including cosmic villains – into oblivion.
This new reboot is going all out to avoid the foibles of its predecessors. The main characters are older. The cast is made up of actors with proven track records. The movie opens with them wielding their powers, rather than going through another origin story. And from the trailer, the setting will be retro-futuristic, with neither the campiness of the 2005 and 2007 films, nor the bleakness of the 2015 story.
Director Matt Shakman, who helmed the Emmy-nominated WandaVision (2021) for Disney+, has shown he can tell fantastical stories through characters who feel grounded and human.
Marvel/Disney needs The Fantastic Four: First Steps to be a success. More than any film in recent memory, the future of the MCU rests on it.
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Pregnant superhero in space In this version of The Fantastic Four, Sue carries out her superhero duties as Invisible Woman with her first baby on the way. On what excited Vanessa most about playing the heroine, the 37-year-old said: "To me, it always seemed kind of revolutionary to have this mother at the centre of this family, but also be absolutely part of the team, never left at home on her own." Vanessa added: "When I met Matt (Shakman, director) and Kevin (Feige, producer) for the first time and started talking about Sue, I was already so passionate about her. The idea of having a pregnant superhero, this working mother, excited me so much. And even while shooting it, it was surreal because I had this pregnancy bump. "But I was so included in everything, and I was so [touched] -- Matt and Kevin were such huge champions of having her be as complex and fierce as she is loving and warm, and all the things that I think femininity really is." In the film, many scenes depict Sue and her husband Reed navigating parenthood together, as well as domestic scenes of all the four heroes together at home. With Sue written to represent the current generation, the theme of parenthood was rooted in her character. She elaborated: "I always think that the very DNA of projects reflects the experiences that you have. "The Fantastic Four: First Steps was such a combination of domesticity where Reed would be smelling Sue's socks, or Sue would be brushing her teeth - and then we'd be in the intergalatic epic cosmos, you know? "So I think Matt was so clear about that being at the heart of the comics, as well as wanting to tell a story about two parents and the fears they have when their baby is coming along." 'Holding on to his humanity' Lauded as a brilliant inventor, astronaut and explorer, Reed also doubles up as Mister Fantastic, with the superpower to stretch every part of his body. However, it is this same intelligence that "isolates" him not just from the world, but from his own family. Pedro, 50, shared his views on his character: "The one thing I found anchoring was that someone this smart strangely makes him un-innocent when it comes to human interactions and relationships — in saying the wrong thing or reading the room incorrectly, or finally finding a way to express his burdens. "[He gets] sort of perplexed by the fact that people aren't catching on as quickly as he would with how his mind works. He'll see a thing and be like, 'Oh, I have to explain it to you', I'm sorry'. So it was really fun to create idiosyncratic behaviour around that. "But at the core, my authorship is that he's incredibly co-dependent, and without his family, he doesn't know how to function and he's lost to his own brain. His identity is related utterly to his family and his position in it and protecting them and also being protected by them." In contrast, Reed's best friend Ben harbours issues closer to his heart, after having had his human body transformed into a nearly indestructible rocky being with super strength. On tapping into his character, Ebon shared: "One undeniable thing about Ben you can't get around is this state that has been forced down onto him. He has this push-and-pull tension in him, between this monstrous outside and this very human, loyal and kind person on the inside. "And I think trying to put his inner life out there and be understood — holding on to his humanity — is inherent to this character." It was also Ebon's first time acting with motion capture - the process of recording patterns of movement digitally - which he said was a selling point for him in being a part of the film. [[nid:720353]] The 48-year-old explained: "I wanted to explore this way of acting and I was hoping it'd be able to free me up. I'm never gonna get to play something like that — this incredibly strong, heavy character. 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'Absolutely zero humanity' In the time leading up to the launch of the film, there has been much talk about the antagonist duo Silver Surfer and Galactus, especially with the unveiling of their character designs in teasers. Described as a powerful and deeply melancholic character, Julia spoke about Silver Surfer: "[My take on] Silver Surfer was different, because it's Shalla-Bal (Silver Surfer's real name) who's never been portrayed on screen. And while putting my own little twist into her without changing too much, I wanted to respect the fans." Matt added: "Her story is so much defined by family as well, and this idea of sacrifice, and these impossible choices that [the Fantastic Four] is being presented with. But what's so brilliant about Shalla-Bal is that even though she's the Herald of Galactus and she's done this [act of telling planets about their imminent destruction] a thousand, million times, there's still a cost to her personally. "She tells everyone, 'Hey, you're all gonna die', but there's this additional part that's just her and not Galactus, saying, 'Hold your loved ones close'. There's a lot going on under that shiny surface." The scene of Silver Surfer's speech heralding the end of Earth has gone viral on social media, with many netizens praising the chilling voice Julia brought to the character. The 31-year-old admitted that the scene was shot on her very first day on set, where she was suspended "30 feet in the air from a construction crane" on the "biggest set in the whole movie", and she was aided by an earpiece giving her directions. "It was probably the craziest first day I've ever had on a job," she joked. Acting alongside Julia is Ralph, who stepped into the "rather large shoes" of Galactus. To understand a 14-billion-year-old cosmic being that devours entire planets, the actor-narrator shared some of his preparation work: "My goal was to think away from any kind of humanity and try to imagine this cosmic force that has intelligence beyond human understanding." "The way I found to imagine the destructive power of Galactus was through watching lots of YouTube videos of tornadoes, hurricanes and tsunamis, and imagining having that kind of power," continued the 55-year-old. "So yeah, it's a completely different way of approaching a character because they say there is absolutely zero humanity in it. He exists to feed his hunger, to maintain cosmic balance — there is no human malice in him eating planets." Conclusively, the cast shared parts of the film they were looking forward to having fans notice on their first watch, with the consensus being the themes of love and family. Ebon articulated: "There's an enormous amount of love in this movie — between the characters and the love that Matt and Kevin have for the Fantastic Four franchise, as well as the love the art department has. There's so much passion that's gone into making this, down from the tiniest little props to the bigger thematic ideas about parenthood." Julia added: "I'm just excited for people to see that it's really about community and love, and how important family is. Even though the Fantastic Four are all superhumans, they possess that very human element." The Fantastic Four: First Steps is now showing in cinemas. [[nid:720570]] No part of this article can be reproduced without permission from AsiaOne.
