Official Marvel / MCU Discussion:

I've been reading about this thing a TON and this FF movie is just the ultimate trainwreck of a movie. A future cautionary tale. Apparently they needed to have another F4 movie so they encouraged Trank to take this job. He sat on it and finally came up with a story he liked: space adventure gone wrong turns into horror-esque movie. It works as a movie actually because it's compelling. The problem: it's not Fantastic Four and for a big budget, tent-pole film it won't sell. Space horror at PG-13? What kids are going to want the toy of Mr. Fantastic who comes with crippling PTSD? No fun at all.

So then the studio changes it up and literally changes the last third of the movie while cutting out the middle third of the movie to better fit their horrible narrative. Trank, who has thrown tantrums repeatedly as the studio continues to change his vision, lashes out by drinking, taking drugs, and not showing up on set at times.

The studio is forced to spend tens of millions that were supposed to go to 3D versions of the movie go to re-shoots that the cast hates. This gives you poor acting performances from all your leads AND it results in a dreadful wig for your main actress. Then Trank further buries HIS OWN MOVIE by bashing the studio who paid him and put their trust in him in the first place.

The film right now is sitting at something like 27 million in a box office open, 60 million domestic for a film that cost probably 200+ million to make... Just incredible the ineptitude showed by both the studio and the director. Some companies estimated Trank's comments cost the film at least 10 million dollars alone...

As for the F4, it can definitely be done. Honestly it's not that hard to accomplish, but FOX just doesn't seem to get it. You're right they should sell the rights back and move on instead of tanking more cash just to spite Marvel. Marvel has found a way to keep their movies fresh by making them OTHER genres instead of "comic book movie". Cap 2 is a political thriller. Guardians of the Galaxy is a space opera in the vein of Star Wars. Ant-Man is a heist movie. Sure you keep some of the comic book aspects because you have to, but really they keep it fresh by being different. Other studios are coming around to that as well, but they are slower on the uptake. FOX is nailing it with Deadpool and the X-Men movies have improved. F4? Give up on it.

Scott Pilgrim is literally one of my favorite films. It's tremendously fun, brilliant, and unique. Just a fantastic movie, I wish I'd watched it in theaters. My friends and I all absolutely love that movie. In fact I started reading the comics because of it.

 

Ah I see, so all the reviews saying that it feels like the movie is missing an entire act, a middle, are spot on. They say there's a decent hour of set up, and then an abrupt, generic action scene finale and that's it. I agree that as a director you shouldn't trash your own movie, at least not until years later, but I do get it. I'd certainly liked to have seen his vision rather than a remake of the 2000's film with new people.

As for Scott Pilgrim, so nice to finally meet a fellow fan, my sister is the only other person I know that likes it. It's sad to me, I think it's such a smart and fun movie with a great cast, but I guess people got Michael Cera fatigue or something.

 

Scott Pilgrim is just kind of different. It's a different humor and different world. You have to actually want to like it and it got such mild reviews a lot of people just didn't respond to it. I think if it was on Netflix it'd blow up really quickly. One day it'll be a cult classic.

I'm honestly interested in Trank's original movie... if it wasn't Fantastic Four. If it was a separate entity I'd definitely give it a shot.

 

I'd say that's an overstatement. FOX was responsible for sure, but so was Trank. Those two collaborated to make the most entertaining train wreck of a movie franchise that I've seen in a long time. It's fascinating.

 

I believe someone at FOX tipped off Disney about this movie and Disney launched a full scale investigation into the events. What they found was so damning they bailed on Trank immediately. That's how crazy this whole thing has been.

 

I'm enjoying this mess way too much. I think it has something to do with it feeling like retribution (and I mean that in the absolute literal dictionary definition of the word) for Fox inflicting Silver Surfer on us. There could be zero people from that movie involved in this movie and I still don't care, I'm loving it.

As for that what went wrong video, regardless of who is more to blame, I take one thing away from it at the end. He says studios shouldn't be so quick to react to public uproar, and I agree. We don't know what's best, and if we got our way all the time as a majority, Heath Ledger would have been fired immediately, and heck so would Ben Affleck. And regardless of any backlash in recent times, Ledger's Joker is one of my favotire performances in any movie ever, and Affleck continues to look better and better as Batman IMO, and I hated the choice at first.

Plus you have people mocking and complaining about Apocalypse's look in the upcoming X-Men movie, myself included, but that's not gonna stop me from seeing it. I doubt they scrap all that's been filmed and change the look of the character because the Internet has some fun with some movie stills, and I don't think they should. Most likely we see the final product and are good with it, and if the character is good and the movie is good, we forget we complained in the first place.

I think it's clear there's probably a lot of reaction to the public with F4, and it probably would have been a better movie if that stuff was ignored. Yeah, people complained that what they were hearing didn't sound like the F4 they were used to from the comics, but it sounds like despite the changes they still aren't those characters and the movie sucks and often doesn't even make sense because of all the tampering and stuff that was cut out.

 

^ I think to your point...

You're right we usually sit through just about everything in pre-production... And yet the studio STILL chose to tank this movie... What's that tell you about Trank's vision? This is the SAME studio that's taken chances with their X-Men series. This is the SAME studio that's making that Apocalypse which looks awful... and they still took a look at this movie and threw a bunch of it out... YIKES!

 

I sincerely doubt FOX goes through with a sequel to a movie that loses them maybe 60 million dollars. I mean that's the most ridiculously illogical move to make for a studio. They'll either sit on the property for 7 years or deal them back them Marvel for the X-Men TV rights.

And I'm just not sure I buy that list just yet. Umberto is famous for not being reliable.

 

So this seems to be the trend with Fox comic movies. What comic movies have they gotten right, and by right I mean, actually a good movie because I don't think any of the Spider Man movies are anything but mediocre at best.

I wonder if Marvel just has all the best writers and directors for this genre under contract or something.

Edit: Oh, I forgot those Spider Man movies were Sony right?

 

Well I thought the first two Spider-Man movies by Raimi were really good. The third one was dreadful. The newer ones I honestly never watched, but yeah those are all Sony.

FOX has the X-Men franchises. They're responsible for X-Men 1, 2, and 3 along with First Class and Days of Future Past. They're responsible for Wolverine Origins and The Wolverine. They're responsible for the Fantastic Four movies with Jessica Alba and this latest one. They're also doing Deadpool.

I recently re-watched First Class which I loved and man if it wasn't for Fassbender and McAvoy giving tremendous performances that movie would have suuuuuuucked. It was a really solid premise and those two really saved the movie, otherwise Jennifer Lawerance was wooden and the rest of the cast was just bad. The special effects mostly looked like low budget crap.

On a super side note: Namor the Sub-Mariner is owned by Universal, as are the rights to a solo Hulk movie. Man-Thing is owned by Lionsgate. Bad guys associated with the Fantastic Four that belong to FOX include Gladiator, Galactus, the Skrulls, Silver Surfer, and of course DOOM.

 

Disasters is dependent on who you ask. If you ask FOX then NONE of their X-Men movies have been disasters. They've all made good money, including Origins and X3. They weren't good movies, but they still made enough money to keep making sequels which is all FOX cares about.

With Marvel Studios there's a sense of professional pride because these are THEIR properties. They feel obligated to make them not just close to their subject material, but also decent quality movies. All FOX cares about is making it good enough to make money. They've realized they need these X-Men movies to improve because of what Marvel has done, so they're really hitting a groove again with that franchise. The Fantastic Four though they just don't seem to understand.

 

Of that list real, I'd only rank Fist Class and Days of Future Past as good. I'm not a huge hater of the other X-Men movies, but I wouldn't call them anything more than mediocre.

 

I thought the first two of the older ones were legitimately good. The 3rd one was obviously not good at all. And honestly I think those first two are probably better than First Class if it weren't for McAvoy and Fassbender. Those two saved this franchise.

I'm not saying FOX does a great job making quality movies by the way. I'm saying they do a fantastic job at making supremely mediocre movies that sell a ton of tickets and make money. That's their only real objective. If it weren't for the recent run of above average Marvel movies, FOX would continue trotting out below average or even bad stuff like Origins because... why make good movies which are more expensive if they can make "eh" movies that make just as much money if not more?