On August 7th, 2015, 20th Century Fox's Fantastic 4 was released to scathing critical reviews and disappointing box-office returns. The bad reception seems to be universal, even right down to the film's own director, Josh Trank, who tweeted before the film's release that "a year ago I had a fantastic version of this" that audiences will never be able to see.
20th Century Fox has had a reputation for interfering with some projects, and this one was a notable example, but the director has also been criticized for erratic behavior that also caused problems during filming. Was Fantastic Four the product of bad studio decisions which rushed the film into the state it is, or an inexperienced director who did not know how to handle a large-scale production like this?
For this article, I think it would be a great idea to explore the reasons why Fantastic Four failed critically and financially, who is to blame for this (the studio or the director), and how much creative control should be given to directors and studio executives in the future.
Curious how the subject of The Fantastic Four never succeeds as a film in either the 2005 version or the one a decade later this year. It's strikingly similar to how it was with The Incredible Hulk in 2003 and 2008 and that they're both Marvel franchises. Maybe it's because the film studios are unable to have faith in these comics being taken seriously by a modern audience as they are? That they seem too camp and not edgy enough for Hollywood's taste? – dsoumilas9 years ago
This topic is really interesting to me. There are many creative reasons why the movie is However, it's a difficult one to address in some areas. Particularly, the whole "who is to blame?" question is a somewhat premature one to definitively answer, I think. Ultimately, we have only heard unconfirmed reports on the matter. They paint an idea, sure, but they're hardly 100% credible at this point. Maybe in the future, when more information on this debacle comes to light. It might be interesting to talk a bit about the Marvel-Fox conflict. Marvel has largely limited the role of comic book properties who's movie rights are owned by Fox - the X-Men and Fantastic Four. Some people feel the movie may have been made hastily in an attempt to retain the rights to the FF. I believe either 2015 or 2016 would have been the last year Fox would have had to release a movie to keep the movie rights, otherwise they revert back to Marvel. – BradShankar9 years ago