The first official look at Josh Trank’s FANTASTIC FOUR reboot hits the Web.
It’s almost certainly fair to say, from what we’ve been hearing for the last several months to a year, that Josh Trank‘s upcoming reboot of Marvel’s first family of superheroes; THE FANTASTIC FOUR – starring Miles Teller as Reed Richards, Kate Mara as Susan Storm, Michael B. Jordan as Johnny Storm, Jamie Bell as Ben Grimm, and Toby Kebell as Dr Doom – has already proved itself to be rather a divisive little venture among fans.
From the rumours that the film would have a grittier, documentary-esque tone akin to Trank’s 2012 film CHRONICLE, to the casting of Jordan and Mara as the traditionally biological sibling characters Johnny and Sue Storm, to Kebell stating in interview that his take on the iconic FF villain Victor von Doom (Sovereign ruler of Latveria and intellectual equal of that vaunted Reed Richards) will instead be as “Victor Domashev […] an anti-social programmer” who uses “Doom” as an internet handle; it seems that every revelation to have surfaced about the film, compounded by the fact that next to no official marketing has been released to support what some view as odd decisions, has generated as much trepidation or confusion in some sections of its potential audience as it has excitement for a fresh take on a 50+ year old team in others.
However, at long last, both a teaser trailer and poster for the film have been released, finally giving fans an official peak at what sort of thing they might expect from Trank’s Fantastic Four… or ‘FANT4STIC‘ as it is stylised.
From the trailer, it certainly does seem that the film will have a more grounded edge, whilst the muted colour palette and overall sombre tone of the trailer does indeed suggest a darker-than-normal tone to proceedings along with it. The traditional blue morphsuit-esque costumes seem to have been replaced with survival suits of some description, and showy displays of the heroes’ superpowers are few and far between in the trailer (though the glimpses we do get seem to be rather impressive, particularly what I presume to be Ben Grimm’s mutation into the ever lovin’, blue-eyed Thing).
As if to underline the point, Trank has stated in his most recent interviews that: “I always viewed Fantastic Four and […] how they’re transformed to really fall in line more with a Cronenberg-ian science fiction tale of something horrible happening to your and it transforing out of control. The potential for a hard sci-fi take on that material makes me really excited”.
The revised origin story involving the team (interestingly seemingly comprising of six individuals in the trailer) being teleported to another dimension hints at this Cronenberg influence. Furthermore, on the subject of hard SF, there is also a very definite (albeit not necessarily intentional) echo of Christopher Nolan‘s INTERSTELLAR in the trailer’s sweeping shots of rural America and of characters in scientific establishments overlaid with a monologue about the indomitability of the human desire to discover.
The darker, more grounded tone of the film is likely to be something that remains divisive. Contrary to what many believe due largely to the success of Nolan’s DARK KNIGHT TRILOGY, taking this direction with a superhero film is not a sure-fire way to win over audiences. Indeed, Batman films aside, the superhero films that tend towards a darker, more grounded tone (MAN OF STEEL, THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, and so on) tend to also be the ones that are the most genuinely divisive amongst their various fanbases. However, what I think is clear from the trailer in conjunction with Trank’s words is that – contrary to what many feared – FANT4STIC will be the way it is due to genuine directorial vision as opposed to simply being dark for darkness’ sake.
As far as any other aspect of the film is concerned, it is still largely difficult to make any judgments or predictions. We don’t see much of the performances of the four protagonists in the trailer beyond a series of reaction shots, and nothing at all (as far as I could tell) of Kebell’s Doom (although an on-set photo of the character against a green-screen did leak onto the internet last year). In many ways the teaser is largely an exercise in confirming things that we already knew, and in as far as that goes, I think it equally likely that the concerns held in some corners (for example; that a dark tone is inappropriate for the FF) will be compounded by the teaser trailer as they will be allayed by it.
On the other hand, one could equally argue that the teaser does exactly what a teaser should do: that is to say, it gives a taste of what is in store for the audience without giving away any major plot details, or spoiling any memorable moments or lines of dialogue before the event. And – speaking purely for myself – as someone who was initially sceptical of the idea of a dark and gritty FANTASTIC FOUR film in which it seemed to me that the villain would be a jumped-up internet troll, what little the teaser has revealed has left me rather intrigued, and has gone quite a way to winning me over to its side. I’m certainly going to be giving the film the benefit of the doubt, and look forward to perhaps gleaning a little more of Trank’s vision for the project in the months to come.
Fantastic Four (or FANT4STIC) will be released in cinemas on August 7th, 2015.
