A 6-step process to get Marvel's first family back on track...
There’s a reason it’s called “The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine.” They’re Marvel’s first great superhero team and the first great comic of the Marvel Age. But despite this the Fantastic Four have had some rotten luck in the cross-media department. In a nutshell, we have seen:
--The unreleased 1994 low budget film, which was made only so the producers could renew the copyright to the property.
--The 90’s animated series, which yielded a shallow first season and a re-tooled, highly competent second season.
--A stylish new animated series in 2006, whose future, while not officially cancelled, is in flux due to its erratic broadcasting schedule in the US.
--Two big-budget but mostly lackluster feature films from 20th Century Fox.
There are many superhero movies of the past ten years that will likely stand the test of time, but the Fantastic Four isn’t one of them. With talk already springing up from Fox about rebooting the franchise, there has been much talk from fans about what can possibly be done with Marvel’s first family of superpowered explorers/adventurers on the big screen, much concerning recasting certain characters and reworking the tone of the films. But turning this comic series into a film franchise to rival Star Trek is a bit more complicated than most people think. I’ve boiled my thoughts into six easy steps:
Step 1: WAIT
It’s been only two years since the last film was crapped into theaters, it’s way too soon to announce another movie and call it a reboot. Learn from what’s come before. THE INCREDIBLE HULK was released 5 years after Ang Lee’s HULK, and that reboot barely broke even at the box office. The Batman franchise waited 8 long years before we got a perfect origin story and a masterpiece of a sequel.
Step 2: Get it back to Marvel
Let’s face it, Fox had their chance to make this one twice. They placed the director of BARBERSHOP at the helm and settled for a mundane, sitcom tone for both films. And while Marvel Studios is producing masterworks like IRON MAN, Fox continues to pump out disposable dreck like X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE. Better to let the rights lapse or just sell it back to Marvel now while the getting’s good. Surely Disney/Marvel would pay handsomely for such a classic property while giving Fox a lucrative distribution deal. Once the characters are back under the Marvel banner where they belong, it will be so much easier to:
Step 3: Ingrain it in the Marvel Universe
There are lots of excellent Marvel characters that Fox doesn’t have the rights to use in future FF sequels. With the one-two punch of IRON MAN and THE INCREDIBLE HULK, Marvel got to tie the elements of their superhero worlds together on the big screen for the first time in a way that wasn’t just a knowing wink to the audience, but a potent promise of further awesomeness. A new FF film within the already established Marvel world would allow for references to Tony Stark and Spider-Man, news reports from the Daily Bugle, and appearances from Nick Fury and SHIELD.
Step 4: Recast everyone. Yes, everyone.
Michael Chiklis (as Ben Grimm/The Thing) and Chris Evans (as Johnny Storm/Human Torch) were easily the brightest spots in an otherwise mediocre cast, but it’s not as though they are the only actors who can play those roles. Besides the two of them, the cast leaves much to be desired. I could write a whole article on the miscasting of Jessica Alba as Invisible Woman and how much it boggles my mind in its stupidity. What the franchise needs is a fresh start, even if that means forgetting the past and clearing away the things that were good before. And when I say a fresh start, I really mean:
Step 5: Don’t fear the Re-start
It may not seem like the most natural move, but hear me out. I know that there are plenty of good reasons to avoid retelling the Fantastic Four’s origin on film, not the least of which because we saw the origin in the 2005 film. And yet, I’d still think they should strongly consider it, given the success of Christopher Nolan’s Batman re-imagining. It is possible, while retelling the origin, to change and improve every single detail of what has previously been shown on film, even presenting it in half the time but with twice the suspense. The easiest way to put a different spin on things is to introduce Franklin Storm, the father of Johnny and Sue, into the story. He could play an integral mentoring role in the first film, then possibly die at the hands of Dr. Doom in the second, thus establishing Doom as a powerful threat. Speaking of which:
Step 6: No more Dr. Doom…for now
To be honest, this is the real reason that I long for a full page-one restart. The abysmal mishandling of Dr. Doom, one of the most revered supervillains in all of comics (right up there with the Joker, seriously), stunted the growth of the franchise more than anything else. Fox’s attempts to copy the success of the SPIDER-MAN film franchise came to a head with Dr. Doom, who was reimagined from an armored super-genius dictator into a shallow Norman Osborn knockoff. Since the character of Doom is credited as the inspiration for Darth Vader, one can see how these changes were never going to work. Whether the next film is a full restart or not, no time should be spent trying to correct the mistakes of the past two films relating to this baddie. Instead, follow the Batman Begins model in this regard: introduce the FF in one film, have them fight some other villain (like, for example, the Mole Man and his monstrous underground minions), and throw in a tease at the end promising Dr. Doom in the sequel.
Also, a few provisions are in order concerning the character: 1) When we actually meet Doom, we must never see the disfigured face beneath his mask, 2) he must be a formidable match for the entire team (lightning from his hands gets real old real fast, people), 3) he must speak in a highly sophisticated and egocentric tone (quoting lots of classic literature as he dispenses hurt on our heroes), 4) he must have an entire fortress loaded with robots, gadgets, and an array of hero-killing hardware, 5) and he should come off as so dangerous, you’d be scared to be in the same room with him.
Although the last ten years have been fortunate for many superheroes on the big screen, the Fantastic Four seem to have come out the worst for it. Here’s hoping that these classic heroes see a dramatic turnaround in the coming years and get the big-screen treatment they truly deserve.
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