Here is a link to the podcast, Click Here
During the podcast he talks about both Reed and Ben Grimm/The Thing. His ideas for Reed and his powers sound refreshing and definitely “badass” and crazy. If you listen to the podcast on the link above starting at 40 minutes and 26 seconds, Landis does a much better job describing his pitch.
He says that he actually wrote a bunch of Fantastic Four and he’s a big fan. His pitch was a
“family on the run” and he wanted to
“do a different thing, and turn the origin into it’s own thing instead of the first act”.
His pitch of the Thing is definitely out there. His idea was that the Thing was transformed into a rock the size of a football that goes through the seven stages of grief. His version actually had Reed carrying around the Thing for a lot of the movie. Throughout the movie Reed would keep telling Ben
that
“it doesn’t make any sense” and that Reed believes Ben was
“converted into pure energy”. Again, I think Landis does a better job describing this, but eventually towards the second act, Ben gets his body back after he crawls out of the rubble of a fallen building. It’s during this scene that he realizes that
“he can build his body out of anything, and keep growing” , which makes a
“King Kong sized version of The Thing”. He also says that this version of
The Thing “could probably take on the Avengers" by himself, and that was part of his pitch to Fox.
He goes on to say how
“Sue Storm can control light” and” Johnny Storm can
“burn hotter than the sun”. You can tell he has a really good understanding of the characters even though his ideas are out there.
The scene he describes for Reed sounds awesome,
“Reed is tied up, not tied up but special government restraints, but they needed to talk to him. So, they take this thing off his head, and he attacks a guy with his nose, and then hits a guy, and nails a guy to a wall, it was like John Carpenter’s ‘The Thing’, but not gory, he pins everybody to the wall using his face.”
He explains how somebody has to unlock him, and it’s a really comedic scene, there is really crazy stuff going on, somebody is actually wrapped up in Reed’s eye. Obviously, this would be an extreme portrayal of Reed’s powers.
If you have a chance, give the podcast a listen, it was a fun episode. What do you think about his pitch? Are you on board with all of it, some of it, or none of it?