I though it was Silver Surfer that disappointed, not the first one.
I liked
Silver Surfer much better than the first, because at least the FF actually got to be the heroes that time. They didn't just protect themselves or save people from problems they personally caused.
But I guess you're talking about box office and general critical reaction. I don't recall the sequel doing much worse than the original in that respect; my impression is that they were judged about equally mediocre.
We are the peanut gallery, not the studio.
that's your point of view.
No, it's the objectively correct definition of the phrase.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/peanut gallery?s=t
noun 1. Informal. the rearmost and cheapest section of seats in the balcony or the uppermost balcony of a theater.
2. Slang. a source of insignificant criticism: No remarks from the peanut gallery!
"Peanut gallery" can only refer to a portion of the audience, not to the people putting on the show.
At least they get to keep the rights.. for whatever reason because they clearly fail at doing it and have no idea how to make an engaging superhero movie.
Odd, though, considering that it's from the same studio that's been handling the X-Men pretty well for the past few years. They had their misfires with that franchise in the past, but they seem to have their act together now where the mutants are concerned. So it's odd that this property was handled so much worse.
Well, I suppose it makes sense if you disregard that they're both Marvel properties and just look at them as two of Fox's many holdings. The X-Men property is an enduring success, while the FF property has not benefited Fox that much. But then, why even bother spending so much money to hold onto the rights?
It's not like Marvel haven't got a reputation for micromanaging their projects - just ask Edger Wright, Patty Jenkins and Jon Favreau. If they had this film and had also attached Trank to it, he'd probably still have ended up out on his ass. Marvel might have handled the reshoots better or picked up on the problems earlier, but there'd probably still be shanigans.
But in those cases, the director changes were above board and announced. Do we even know who took over FF for the reshoots?
Nearly every professional product is the result of more than one person, and you've got to earn your protection from editors.
Speaking as a writer, I have to say that editors aren't something you need protection from. Editors are there to make your work better, and you're a fool if you don't listen to them. Creators who get powerful enough that nobody dares to edit their work tend to get self-indulgent and lose perspective, and the quality of their work suffers for it. (Cf. the
Star Wars prequels and
Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which show what happened when George Lucas got so powerful that nobody was able to tell him "George, that's a really dumb idea.")
For the first movie, instead of getting some kind of Sam Raimi-type visionary with a passion for the source material, they hired Tim Story, the director of Taxi.
We've gotten terrific movies from directors with little prior relevant experience. Like, didn't the Russo brothers mainly do sitcom episodes before they wowed us with
The Winter Soldier?
And once again, we don't get any A-list actors, either.
I thought that Miles Teller had a lot of buzz in the industry lately, though I'm hardly an expert on industry buzz. Jordan seems to be fairly big too. And Toby Kebbell was arguably the breakout star of
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, even though it was a performance-capture role.
The FF weren't teenagers, and this movie isn't called Ultimate Fantastic Four.
Didn't need to be. Most of the modern superhero movies draw freely on the Ultimate universe -- e.g. Nick Fury and his role in the Avengers' creation, the Avengers' costumes, the Hulk's origin tying into Captain America's supersoldier formula, Spidey's origin being tied to Oscorp genetic experiments, etc. Which is only natural, since both the Ultimate comics and the movies shared the goal of updating and streamlining the concepts for a modern audience, shedding some of the dated or silly elements of the original comics.
And in general, comics adaptations tend to draw on elements from a wide range of different comics and eras rather than focusing on just one. E.g.
Batman: The Animated Series distilled elements from comics ranging from the '70s to the '90s and mixed them together freely. Most other adaptations have done the same. The original and Ultimate Marvel universes are both potential sources for ideas, so there's no reason not to draw on them both at once.