'Fantastic Four' Movie Reboot Plot News: Director Going 'Darker' Than First 2 Films
With movie reboots becoming a fashion these days, another superhero movie is heading that way. The "Fantastic Four," the first superhero team that Marvel Comics introduced in 1961 and had two previous film adaptation and a sequel, will undergo a makeover and will be released in theaters on August 7, 2015.
The reboot will be helmed by "Chronicle" director John Trank, with new actors cast for superheroes. A younger actor, Miles Teller, was cast for the role of the team leader, Reed Richards or Mr. Fantastic. Kate Mara plays Sue Storm or the Invisible Woman. Probably one of the more controversial castings ever done in movies, according to some reports, is that of Michael B. Jordan as Johnny Storm or The Human Torch, who is also Sue Storm's brother. The character in the comics is portrayed as Caucasian, but Trank opted to cast Jordan, who is an African-American. Actor-dancer Jamie Bell, best remembered as litte Billy Elliot, was surprisingly cast as Ben Grimm or The Thing.
Trank said he wants to avoid the "cartoonish" tone of the first two films in the Fantastic 4 universe.
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"The original two films to me are very similar to a lot of recent movies that have come out, in terms of that kind of cartoonish. It's just not something that me and Simon are interested in as storytellers," he told Inquisitr. "There's the opportunity to make something that is challenging and tragic and dramatic. The opportunity is right there in the material."
"We'd rather steer it in that direction as opposed to just embracing a tone that comes right off the page," he explained, adding that he intends the reboot to be "darker."
When asked about his controversial casting of Jordan, he said that it was not unusual to have multi-racial families these days, but what weighed more was that for him, Jordan was the right person for the role. Trank had previously worked with Jordan in "Chronicle."
Given Trank's pronouncement, it is not known how much he will deviate from the comic's storyline, but reports have come out saying that he may change the origins story a bit. Miles Teller, who will play Mr. Fantastic, also said that his character did not have full control of his powers, according to the Inquisitr. Other reports are saying that this film will be based on the "Ultimate Fantastic Four," the "modernized re-imagining" of the original comic series.
The first film adaptation was in 1994, but was never released to the public. In 2005, a second adaptation was done, followed by a sequel "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer" in 2007.
