Even though it’s only a couple of year since the last Fantastic Four movie, 20th Century Fox has decided the whole franchise already needs an overhaul, and they’ve set producer Akiva Goldsman (Constantine, I Am Legend) to oversee it, and Michael Green (exec producer of Heroes and co-writer of Green Lantern) to write the script.
However while it’s being billed as a reboot, it’s not clear at the moment whether this means a brand new cast and a pretty much complete junking of everything that went before (as with the Incredible Hulk), or whether it’s just a new tone they’re going for. Variety is reporting that work on the movie is still at such an early stage, that it’s unclear whether Ioan Gruffudd, Chris Evans Jessica Alba and Michael Chiklis will return (or if they’ll even be asked).
However while Fox is keeping its card close to its chest, it does sound like the new movie will be a complete do-over, which in our opinion would be a bit of a shame, as while the last film, 2007’s Fantastic Four: Rise Of The SIlver Surfer, wasn’t a masterpiece, it’s the only superhero franchise around that has a real sense of humour and just want to be fun, which is a handy antidote when Spider-man, Wolverine, Superman and Batman are wandering around being all angsty.
Interestingly there has been some suggestion that the leaking of this news on the day that Disney announced they were buying Marvel was a way for Fox to say that they’re going to try and hang onto their Fantastic Four film rights, which would revert to Marvel (and therefore now Disney) if the studio didn’t make a new film in the next few years.
However at the moment apparently Fox’s priority is still to spin-off the SIlver Surfer into his own movie, following the introduction of the character in the second Fantastic Four film.
Personally we’re hoping they don’t deviate too far from the earlier Fantastic Four films by making it all dark and gritty, as they just aren’t those sort of heroes and the first two films did pretty good box office, showing there is a market for superheroes who aren’t clinically depressed.