Josh Trank's "Destructive" Behaviour May Be To Blame For FANTASTIC FOUR After All
While Josh Trank sent out a Tweet last night laying the blame for Fantastic Four's terrible reviews at the feet of Fox, a new report reveals that his "destructive and combative behaviour" towards the cast and crew is what led to the movie turning out the way it did...
Things are getting more and more interesting with the story behind the Fantastic Four reboot. After taking to Twitter last night to say that, "A year ago I had a fantastic version of this. And it would've recieved great reviews. You’ll probably never see it. That’s reality though," a new report appears to shed some light on what really happened. According to Entertainment Weekly, sources have reached out to them and made it clear that the rift between the director and studio didn't boil down to creative differences, but the "destructive and combative behaviour Trank demonstrated toward the crew, producers, studio and even the stars." As the start date neared, Trank apparently started becoming indecisive and began demanding huge changes which left the studio understandably worried. It's believed that his personal disputes became so severe that he deliberately damaged the house which was rented for him and ended up taking out his frustrations and hostility towards both the cast and crew. That all lines up with what we've heard in the past.
It also sounds like those reports about his being fired from that Star Wars Anthology movie were correct too, as the site's sources make it clear that Disney and Lucasfilm let him go after studio executives investigated the rumours of his behaviour on set. From there, they decided they simply couldn't trust him with something so important. Going back to Fantastic Four though, and Fox have apparently been desperate to protect the movie and didn't want details to get out about how they had to go in and attempt to fix it. It also appears as if they were trying to protect Trank from public embarrassment, but that Tweet has ruined the façade and made it clear that he was indeed removed from the movie (if that's the case, it's likely that Simon Kinberg directed the reshoots, though it has been reported that Trank was present for them). Apparently, "several individuals who worked on the movie now say he was actually biting the hand that shielded the public from his meltdown and vindictive behaviour." All of this new information raises some big questions.
Even if Trank's behaviour was as erratic as these sources claim, just how much of an impact would that have had on Fantastic Four? Did he make a terrible movie which Fox desperately tried to salvage through reshoots or did the studio decide that they wanted to make changes and not give him any sort of choice? It's obvious for example that Victor Domashev's entire storyline in the movie was changed due to the fact that fans complained about him not being named Von Doom and that he would have been a hacker who used "Doom" as a handle. While that's different to the comics, there's nothing to say it wouldn't have worked, and it shows a serious lack in confidence from the studio in Trank that they would make such significant alterations based on fanboy whining. Then again, surely only Trank is responsible for Doom's terrible final look, so there has to be blame here on both sides. Will we ever get the full story? Who knows! Stay tuned for more.