Fantastic Four: Grade, Review, Discuss, Sequels?...SPOILERS likely

[Christopher]

I've not seen it (and don't plan to) but doesn't the movie end with them basically becoming the Fantastic Four?

So I suppose really could they not still do a sequel with same cast, but have it be a very loose sequel? They could totally change the tone of it, the costumes, the look, style, everything really, but still have it be a "sort of sequel"

So, sort of like The Incredible Hulk, but with the same cast?

There's precedent for such things. There have been movies that were very loose sequels to the originals; Highlander II is an example of one that was worse, but there are probably instances where a poor first film was followed up by a superior second installment that largely ignored the original. Heck, the Mission: Impossible film series wasn't any good until the third film, and both the second and third films felt like complete reboots despite keeping Tom Cruise and Ving Rhames.

It's been done on TV as well. The pilot of The Six Million Dollar Man had a number of elements that were disregarded or retconned in the later series -- Darren McGavin's character was replaced with Oscar Goldman as the man behind Steve Austin's bionics, Steve was changed from a civilian astronaut to an Air Force colonel, Steve's love interest from the pilot was retconned out of existence and replaced with a one-shot guest star in a later episode, etc. And the M.A.N.T.I.S. series kept the lead character, actor, and premise of the pilot movie but completely rebooted the continuity and replaced every other character and story element (though the series was immensely worse than the pilot).

 

[Mudd]

There was nothing "age inappropriate" about the casting, BTW, to the extent that the movie was based on the Ultimate version of the characters. Marvel themselves successfully pick and choose bits to incorporate from the Ultimates line into their movies, so that's not a net negative.

The movie's badly written and badly photographed. Performances, production design, even the occasionally dodgy CG are not a problem (the latter given that there's always some bad CG - and back in the day of practical effects there was always a bad painted matte shot, a clumsily composited model, etc...).

 

[Guy Gardener]

They were supposed to be playing 15 year olds?

Miles is 27.

Kate is 32.

Michael is 28

Jamie is 29.

Hmmm.

Do these skinny people at all eat ever?

SERIOUSLY!

 

[Tosk]

I've not seen it (and don't plan to) but doesn't the movie end with them basically becoming the Fantastic Four?

So I suppose really could they not still do a sequel with same cast, but have it be a very loose sequel? They could totally change the tone of it, the costumes, the look, style, everything really, but still have it be a "sort of sequel"

So, sort of like The Incredible Hulk, but with the same cast?

The Incredible Hulk is not a sequel to Hulk, loose or otherwise. The back-story and Hulk origin are completely incompatible with each other.

 

[Mudd]

Do these skinny people at all eat ever?

Between movie roles.

 

[Christopher]

The Incredible Hulk is not a sequel to Hulk, loose or otherwise. The back-story and Hulk origin are completely incompatible with each other.

Yes, that's my point. To the casual observer, before it came out, it seemed like a sequel; it had the same main characters but told a later story and had a different, expanded title. In the pre-release marketing and discussion, there was ambiguity about whether it counted as a continuation or not, and I believe that was intentional, since Ang Lee's film got a mixed response rather than a strictly negative one. But details aside, they made a film that was in many ways a followup to the first one while disregarding its details and telling its own unconnected story.

What Ethros is suggesting sounds similar -- not identical, obviously, but similar, in terms of doing a "sequel" that basically ignores its predecessor and does everything differently. Whether it's actually in continuity or not is beside the point here, because I'm not talking about in-story continuity, I'm talking about studio creative and marketing strategy. Lots of film series are flexible about continuity, as I discussed above. There's a wide middle ground between consistency and contradiction that lots of sequels play around with. Heck, look at how flexible the X-Men films have been about character continuity even before the time-travel reboot.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Casual observer = idiot.

Ed Murphy did a movie once where he got elected to congress because he had the same name as a racist Col. Sanders-like politician who'd died a week earlier. This fictional character was banking on morons not being aware that the good old boy that they had been conscientiously voting for for the last 50 years had choked on stripper thong, and that the good people of nowherehorse#### were all too ignorant to know the difference between black and white because they were voting on autopilot.

Bad movie.

 

[lurok]

So in the absence of anything interesting to say about this stinker, I am curious about the music. Phillip Glass was co-credited as composer, but I don't recall hearing anything in the score that sounded vaguely like him. Maybe if I watch it again some time I might catch it, but the weird Beltrami-Glass team-up just seems...weird.

And I wonder if there was some numerical song thing going on? I noticed the Four Tops at one point, and Sue mentioned listening to Portishead (album Third?). Was there a 1 and 2 in there too somewhere?

(I'm stretching to find something )

 

[JWPlatt]

I found an interview with David Fincher to post on an Alien 3 thread discussion ("No one hated it more than me; to this day, no one hates it more than me"). Alien 3 was a Fox movie.

Of Fox, Fincher said this:

"Well, surely you don't want to have the Twentieth Century Fox logo over a shitty movie." And they were like, "Well, as long as it opens."

And open it did. So Fox should consider FF a resounding success.

 

[the G-man]

And open it did. So Fox should consider FF a resounding success.

Actually, as I understand it, in show biz terms "opens" is shorthand for to "open successfully" or "have a good first weekend box office." If so, FF did not, in any way shape or form, "open."

 

[gblews]

There was nothing "age inappropriate" about the casting, BTW, to the extent that the movie was based on the Ultimate version of the characters.

Considering this movie franchise's track record, casting younger actors was one more thing that cut down on the movie's already slim margin for error. EVERY precaution should have been taken to give the movie the opportunity for success. If they were going to pick elements from the Ultimate Universe, which I admit I know little to nothing about, why choose something as significant (and) visible as the (apparent) youthful version of the FF?

The casual fans, whose presence could have saved the movie, I think, would be more familiar with the traditional FF, not to mention long time FF fans. Establish these characters then start to branch out to other versions -- like the X-Men for example. This alone is not what killed the movie but it sure was a big turn off to me when I first heard who was in the cast.

Again, this alone didn't sink the movie, but it sure didn't help a movie that needed as much positivity as it could muster.

 

[the G-man]

I've often suspected that the "young" version of FF in the Ultimate universe was some misguided corporate marketing decision that thought making FF teenagers would snag the Harry Potter/Hunger Games/Twilight audience.

 

[Hound of UIster]

1) It wasn't Marvel corporate. It was apparently an idea by Grant Morrison to reimagine it in the vein of a sitcom type comic book like Friends or Buffy back when he was going to write the book.

2) Aside from Potter, both Twilight and HG had not yet become movie franchises even during the last legs of UFF.

 

[JoeZhang]

I've often suspected that the "young" version of FF in the Ultimate universe was some misguided corporate marketing decision that thought making FF teenagers would snag the Harry Potter/Hunger Games/Twilight audience.

Ultimate Fantastic Four - 2004
Twilight - 2005
Hungry Games - 2008

So you are completely and utterly wrong in regards to two of these. As for the third, as the situations, the context and everything in these books bears no resembles to Ultimate Fantastic Four in any way.

As a theory it is a complete bust.

 

[Christopher]

Comics have always been marketed to younger readers, though less so today than they used to be. It makes sense to try to attract younger readers, because they're the ones who will be your audience for decades to come if you play your cards right, and who will replace the readers you've lost by attrition. There have always been comics featuring teenaged heroes in order to appeal to young audiences -- Robin, Superboy, the Teen Titans, Spider-Man, the original X-Men, the New Mutants (once the X-Men got older), and so on. Heck, Johnny Storm started out as a cool teenager. So there's no need for a special explanation for why the Ultimate FF were handled as teenagers. That's a natural step for a comic book to take. We've just forgotten it in recent years because comics have become so narrowly targeted at older readers.

 

[the G-man]

I've often suspected that the "young" version of FF in the Ultimate universe was some misguided corporate marketing decision that thought making FF teenagers would snag the Harry Potter/Hunger Games/Twilight audience.

Ultimate Fantastic Four - 2004
Twilight - 2005
Hungry Games - 2008

So you are completely and utterly wrong in regards to two of these. As for the third, as the situations, the context and everything in these books bears no resembles to Ultimate Fantastic Four in any way.

As a theory it is a complete bust.

I meant that type of audience. The YA audience. I apologize for my lack of clarity.

 

[Guy Gardener]

We're not thinking fourth dimensionally?

This is like that time Justin Bieber said that Anne Frank would have been a Belieber.



The audience for Harry Potter has existed for a thousand years before Harry Potter was in print, and will still exist for a thousand years after Harry Potter is out of Print.

 

[Nightowl1701]

I honestly don't see how Fox can do another FF film, even years from now. Marvel will stick to its guns and say "We're not doing ANYTHING with ANY of the Fantastic Four - no comics, no TV, no video games, no action figures, not even trading cards, NOTHING - as long as Fox holds on to the film rights." No support whatsoever. Fox would be holding on to the rights of a franchise deader than Highlander. At that point studio accountants will corner the execs and say "Give it back to them already, it's a loser, what are you trying to prove?"

 

[JWPlatt]

...Fox would be holding on to the rights of a franchise deader than Highlander.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1235529/
http://screenrant.com/highlander-reboot-casting-tom-cruise/
http://screenrant.com/highlander-reboot-casting-dave-bautista-kurgan/

Oops.

Looks like Fantastic Four 2 has a good chance.

 

[Nightowl1701]

Like I said... deader than.