How Would You Reboot the Fantastic 4

[justinsayne]

Awhile ago it was announced that the Fox is planning on rebooting Fantastic 4 franchise, so if you were put in charge how would you reboot this struggling film franchise?

Personally I found the two Tim Story directed movies fairly entertaining, though I can see why many people didn't, and why fox would move to reboot this, that being said the those movies aren't that old, so most people will already know the origin, so there is really no need to waste everyones time going over the origin again, just throw up up in the credits real quick, from there you get into the plot of this movie. Personally I would like to see alot of the movie focus on the family dynamic of the Fantastic 4 for the majority of the movie, something they really kinda failed at with the previous two movies, also lets get rid of Dr. Doom, he's great villain but he's not the only villain in the Fantastic 4's rouge gallery, personally I would use Namor and the Atlantians as our protagonists for this movies. I would go with an adaption of the 1970's version of the Namor/FF story, where Johnny Storm finds a homeless man sitting on the street who has no idea who he is or where he's from, Johnny takes him in cleans him up and helps him out, the homeless man turns out to be Namor, and as soon as he's touched by a large amount of water again he regains his memory, and then returns to the sea, to had back to his home, Atlantis, however upon arriving at his home he see's nothing but destruction caused by the the deep sea detonation of nuclear weapons. Angry with man, he vows vengeance, takes the remaining living Atlantians and forms an army that begins a series of attacks on man, beginny with the sinking of several major ships, and oil rigs of the coast, then they attack a cruise ship in which Sue and Reed are on, (Sue convinces Reed it's time to take a vacation or some shit) the two of them try to stop the attack by themselves and save the cruise ship, & it's passengers of a watery grave, however Namor & his Atlantian army are just too much for them, the ship is only saved when Namor see's Sue, and decides to spare her and the rest of the ship's passengers, due to his secret love for her, before having his army retreat Namor warns Sue that these attacks were only the beginning, and in a matter of weeks he plans on taking out the entire east coast, stating that he lost his city now man must suffer the same fate and lose their as well. This of course leads back to the military wanting to just kill all the Atlantians, with Sue pleading that they don't and just to give her & the FF time to reason with Namor, the U.S. begrudgingly grants them the the chance to try and reason with Namor, while secretly the military is planning a full scale attack on Namor & the Atlantians as soon as the surface again. this of course leads to the epic final battle sequence, which only ends after Sue finally convinces Namor this is wrong but not until mush of the military forces have been taken out, however his Atlantian army decides Namor has gone soft and his love for Sue is clouding his judgement, the continue the attack, Namor then turns and joins the FF in their fight to stop them, after a great struggle Namor is able to retake control of his army and stop the attacks, he vows that all attacks on man will stop under the condition that a new city of Atlantis is built to replace the one that was destroyed, Reed tells him he will personally head up the team in charge of building the new city.

Now for Casting and Directors. It took me awhile to figure out who should really be playing which characters in this movie, I didn't want to have any of the cast from the first 2 FF movies back, as this is a reboot and should have an all new cast.

For Mr. Fantasitc/Reed Richards I decided to go with Jeffery Donovan, he does a great job as Micheal Weston on Burn Notice, and I think he could do a great job playing a science nut who can kick some ass if necessary, like Reed.

Invisible Woman was a bit tricky, I was trying to think of a a blond actress who could portray this charecter that isn't still in their 20's, the only 3 names that popped into my head were Cameron Diaz, who I hate with a passion, Drew Barrymore, whom IO just can't see as the Sue Richards type, she's just too flower powery and bubbly, the 3rd woman to pop into my head was Reese Witherspoon, who is really pretty perfect for the role IMO, I think she could pull of the role withe relative ease.

Johnny Storm/Human Torch was another role I had trouble trying to figure out who I'd want in the role, I loved what Chris Evans did with it, and he was a large reason I liked the first 2 FF movies. I really don't know who I would put in this role though 2 names that come to mind are Bradley Cooper, I think he has everything required to pull off Johnny Storm, and Shia LeBouf, he's young and witty, plus has had experience in action roles like this, however he's one of the most hated young actors by fanboys in Hollywood today, so casting him as Torch could turn some fans away, that means I would more than likely go with Bradley Cooper (assuming he isn't already busy filming one of the other 18,000 movies he's already signed on for)

Ben Grimm/Thing is a role that was tricky at first, as I figured I'd have to find a rather large white actor to play the role, but the more I thought about it, the origin isn't really a prominent part of this story, so Ben is going to be covered in orange rock through pretty much all of the movie, which makes finding someone for this role much much easier, this leads to two possible choices for the role 1- Michael Clarke Duncan, he's big, he has teh voice to pull it off, and he's a damn fine actor, the second choice is Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson, not as big, though he has a voice that could work plus he knows how to play the action role pretty well, and I think he could have some nice chemistry with whomever gets the Torch role, especially if it's Cooper.

Namor was kinda tough too, but ultimately I came to the conclusion that the only man good enough for this role is Jon fucking Hamm, he's an amazing actor, has a Namor-esque look and really hasn't been given the chance to really play a substantial role in a movie yet (that I know of anyway), I think Jon Hamm is the prefect choice for Namor.

As far as the Director would go I still have no idea who I would want there, I guess you really can't go wrong with John Favreau as he's did a great job with the Iron Man franchise, and a pretty good job with Daredevil as well, other than him I'm sure there are about a hundred directors who could do an amazing job with this movie whos names I just don't know

Anyway those are my ideas for a Fantastic 4 reboot, what are yours?

 

[JGlass]

The Fantastic Four was botched so badly for the first two films, and I would love to see a reboot.

First things first, the origin story... they fucked it up. Stick to the comics, there's a reason the Fantastic Four ushered in a new age of comics, the story was fantastic. Maybe start the film off with a flashback to Empire State University where Reed Richards is fiddling around with some science project. His roommate, Victor Von Doom, comes in and tells him that he's going to be late for his Astrophysics final. Reed rushes out the door, but not before thanking Victor for being such a good friend. Victor then goes to his bedroom and starts working on a project of his own. He starts to use the device he built and after believing it works for a brief moment he begins to feel pain and his body starts to get burned. The machine causes a large explosion which blows out the walls of the apartment and the building collapses. Then we hit the opening credits.

From there we show the team of Reed Richards, his girlfriend Sue Storm, his best friend Ben Grimm, and an 18 year old (because 16 is just too illogical) Johnny Storm preparing to go into outer space. Some character development is done within the 15-20 minute space journey, and then they get their powers. They show them going through the awkward stage of learning to use their abilities, Reed developing the special suits, and then they show them in their first battle. I would make their first villain Wizard, a B-List baddie at best, but one that has earned a little bit of a fan following due to his unearned arrogance. After struggling to defeat him with their powers alone, Reed uses a device he built that weakens the powers of an individual to bring Wizard down. Though he is unarmed and no longer dangerous, The Thing still punches him with a blow that sends him flying back into Stan Lee's car.

The main conflict will obviously be with Dr. Doom who is traveling all over the world to collect different kinds of magic that he plans on using in his quest to overthrow the Prime of Latveria. He travels to Tibet, Eastern Europe, Mexico, New Orleans, and many other places to collect powerful artifacts and techniques that would help him become more powerful, but he leaves a path of destruction in his wake. The Fantastic Four gives chase to him in a Stark Tech Quinnjet (because Marvel loves crossovers), often having to defeat Doom's henchmen and robot army along the way. Eventually they catch up to Doom, but he has become to powerful for the heroes to handle, knocking The Think unconscious, and severely injuring The Human Torch, to the point that he can no longer control his powers.

Reed brings them all back to the Baxter building where Johnny is kept under constant supervision as Reed struggles to help him control his fire power again. Ben and Sue are both okay, but Reed grows obsessed with stopping Doom as Doom and his robot army begin to invade Latveria. He starts getting distracted from Johnny as he attempts to build a weapon that will be able to resist Doom's magical abilities and defeat the villain. Johnny's condition worsens due to his neglect, and eventually Johnny accidentally looses a firestorm in the Baxter Building that Sue and Ben struggle to contain. Reed, thinking quickly, grabs a device he used on Wizard to stop Johnny from releasing anymore fire. He realizes then that no weapon he could build would be powerful enough to take down Doom, but if he could amp up the power of the device he used on Johnny and Wizard, he might be able to weaken Doom enough so that they'll be able to defeat him.

From here, Reed builds the Ultimate Nullifier, a device that will strip anyone of all their power regardless of how strong they are. In this time, though, Doom has taken over Latveria, and in a press release he warns the rest of the world not to anger him and to do business with his nation, or else they will suffer the wrath of he and his army. Reed, Sue, and Ben get ready to leave for Doomstadt, Latveria's newly named capital, but Johnny decides he wants to go too. Reed and Sue try to talk him out of it, but Johnny decides to go.

They go to Latveria and they have an epic fight scene. The Fantastic Four fights off wave after wave of Doom's DoomBot army. Eventually Doom himself shows up and after he realizes what the Nullifier is he blasts it out of Reed's hand. As Reed tries to regain possesion of the Nullifier, the rest of the Fantastic 4 continues to fight Doom and his army. Just as Doom is about to kill Reed, Johnny manages to regain full control of his powers and blasts Doom with a fireball. This gives Reed time to escape and continue to try to get the Nullifier (I don't know what happened to it, maybe it was kicked around by some DoomBots or it fell off of a cliff or is buried under some rubble or something), and Doom uses his magic to pull Johnny to him and begins to choke Johnny and prepares to charge up his magic for a finishing blow. Just as he is prepared to strike Johnny down, Reed gets the Nullifier and uses it on Doom. Doom collapses, severely weakened, and the people of Latveria, seeing that their tyrant has been weakened, take to the streets and fight off Doom's army and they capture Doom.

The story ends with the Fantastic 4 flying back to New York, realizing that this will be what their lives are like from now on, and they are happy to do it. Back in Latveria, Doom is sentenced to death by hanging. The Latverians hang him, but when they pull the bag off of his head they realize that Doom pulled a magic trick on them and replaced himself with a DoomBot, and nobody knows where Doom is, leaving the series WIDE open to a sequel.

I have no idea who I'd use for actors, and not much of an idea for a director either. Maybe Bryan Singer again? It's more important to get someone who knows how to do a good job with a superhero movie rather than a great film in general, as this wouldn't be like The Dark Knight where it's a great stand alone film even if you're not a big Batman fan, this would be a film for fans of Marvel and the Fantastic 4.

 

[Big Nick Dudley]

Really, I wouldn't. At least not for a long, long time.

The Tim Story films really did a number on the brand. The sequel didn't make as much money as the original, and was far worse (didn't think that was possible). I'm sure some people found this entertaining, and I can say the first one kept my attention, but both were terrible.

Eventually, this will get some sort of reboot. While both films could be considered disappointments at the box office, they made money. I'm not a fan of rebooting a series too quickly, so I hope they wait several years before even considering it. The second film was a complete joke, so the franchise probably needs some time to wash the stink off.