If it feels like not that long since the last ill-fated Fantastic Four screen adaptation, it’s because it hasn’t been all that long, barely ten years. Apparently that’s how long it takes for a franchise to become fair game again, because the first teaser for the new version has dropped. It’s not the most shocking revelation, rumblings about it have been doing the rumble-rumble since director Josh Trank first rose to acclaim in 2012 with his brutal, brilliant found-footage superhero inversion, Chronicle.
He’s an interesting pick for director and the involvement of talented up-and-coming actors like Miles Teller (Whiplash), Kate Mara (House of Cards), Jamie Bell (Billy Elliot) and Michael B. Jordan (Chronicle, Fruitvale Station, The Wire) certainly makes it seem more appealing. The presence of Phillip Glass as an assistant on the score can’t hurt either, and now we’ve got our first taste of what this new revamp will look like, witness:
One thing is for damn sure, it looks a lot darker and more introspective than any previous iteration of the franchise. As an angle, that could go either way, you could end up with a Dark Knight or a Daredevil, but in thematic terms the film certainly seems to be in-line with the sci-fi sensibilities of the original comic. Trank himself has claimed that the work of David Cronenberg (The Fly, Videodrome, ExistenZ) heavily influences the film, along with the Ultimate Fantastic Four Marvel Arc. Based on those parameters (as elaborated on by Trank), it seems like this one might be going for a body-horror angle wherein super-powers are viewed as a blight as much as a boon, which certainly doesn’t mirror the original comic much, but makes for an interesting new angle, along with the alternate dimension shizznit.
As you might expect, Dr. Doom is once again the primary antagonist, and though it saddens me that rapper MF Doom wasn’t given the role, Toby Kebbell is certainly a solid pick, especially after his haunting turn as Koba, the dissident chimp from Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. Reg E. Cathey, another prominent TV actor (somebody on the casting team obviously really likes The Wire and House of Cards) is also an excellent choice to play Dr. Storm and the way his dark, dulcet, viscous vocal stylings preside over the trailer suggest that his role is a prominent one.
The film is due for release on August 7th, which provides a somewhat limited window for the already-delayed hype train, but purely on the basis of this first glimpse, I’d say it has the potential to be one of the most interesting films of what promises to be a blistering summer for cinema. Finally, as to the question of whether an X-Men crossover is on the cards (since this is also Fox), a lot of the staff who were involved with this were also present on the last 2 X-Men films (Matthew Vaughn in particular) and the trailer proudly proclaims that fact, so it could well happen, resulting in two intertwining Marvel-based franchise octopus things. Maybe they’ll have some crazy fourth wall defying fight in a few years time. That’d be fun.
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