From Variety:
Fantastic Four reboot-- Casting, Rumors, Pix, ect;
- Thread starter Turtletrekker
- Start date
With Jordan as Johnny, I would've thought they'd be testing black actresses as Sue. I guess they're thinking one of them will be adopted.
They're casting surprisingly young for Reed and Sue. I'd prefer them to have more maturity. Ideally what I'd like to see is the modern version of the FF as the established "royal family" of superheroes, with Reed and Sue married and with Franklin and Valeria as their kids. I don't want another origin story. But I guess that's not likely to happen, since the FF are being added to the existing X-Men film universe, and there's been no evidence to date that they already exist there.
They're casting surprisingly young for Reed and Sue. I'd prefer them to have more maturity. Ideally what I'd like to see is the modern version of the FF as the established "royal family" of superheroes, with Reed and Sue married and with Franklin and Valeria as their kids. I don't want another origin story. But I guess that's not likely to happen, since the FF are being added to the existing X-Men film universe, and there's been no evidence to date that they already exist there.
The one fear I had was that they would be happy with casting one black actor and have no desire for two even though they are brother and sister. That, combined with the young Reed Richards gives me some concern about the direction the movie will take.
I can't believe Reed Richards is gonna be younger than me. I'm not even thirty, yet, dammit.
Am I the only one who has an issue with Johnny being the same age as all of the choices to play Reed and several years older than one of the choices for Sue?
If done right, I suppose you could have a situation where Johnny is adopted, but to have Johnny adopted and also be the older sibling I think would take too much out of the characters. Once you get too far away from the characters you really don't have anything anymore. In my opinion at least.
I'd be more up for an African American Sue and an African American Johnny. Maybe Bianca Lawson as Sue, Michael B. Jordan as Johnny and then someone older like Patrick Wilson for Reed.
If done right, I suppose you could have a situation where Johnny is adopted, but to have Johnny adopted and also be the older sibling I think would take too much out of the characters. Once you get too far away from the characters you really don't have anything anymore. In my opinion at least.
I'd be more up for an African American Sue and an African American Johnny. Maybe Bianca Lawson as Sue, Michael B. Jordan as Johnny and then someone older like Patrick Wilson for Reed.
^This.
Yeah, having Reed and Sue so young is pretty surprising. I had always thought of Reed as someone who was already a fairly well established and successful scientist before they got their powers, and while it possible for someone young to be successful as a scientist, it would be more believable with someone older.
I'll watch this movie with a black Johnny Storm (Sue's brother) when they cast the next biopic about Malcolm X with a white guy playing him.
This is not prejudice, it's that I grew up with white Storm family and a black Malcolm X. Why all this. PC shit?
This is not prejudice, it's that I grew up with white Storm family and a black Malcolm X. Why all this. PC shit?
They were pretty young in Ultimate Fantastic Four.
I had no idea Johnny Storm was a real person.
I wasn't aware historical bio pics were accurate.
I think it's likely that they'll drop the sibling angle altogether, FWIW.
They usually try to get the broad strokes correct.
However, if it helps, the alternative response I had considered was: "Would you watch it once they cast Genghis Khan as a white person?"
It's ridiculous to compare the casting of fictional characters to the casting of real characters. If it's legitimate to cast the 6'3" Hugh Jackman as the 5'3" Wolverine, or to cast Michael Keaton as Batman, who's supposedly the most perfect physical specimen on Earth, or to recast Kirk, McCoy, and Scotty with actors who have different eye colors than their predecessors, then clearly fictional characters' physical attributes are subject to adjustment.
These comics characters created in the '40s and '60s aren't all white because there was some intrinsic story or character reason for it; they were white because society at the time was racist and not ready to accept more diversity. But the people who created these characters, people like Joe Simon and Jack Kirby and Stan Lee and Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster and Bill Finger, were all the children of Jewish immigrants. They all grew up personally experiencing bigotry toward their religion and nationalities, and the last thing they would've wanted was to endorse monolithic whiteness. That's why so many of their characters are implicitly coded as minorities despite having to be nominally portrayed as white -- Superman is an alien immigrant, the X-Men are mutants, the Hulk and the Thing are feared for their unusual appearance, Daredevil is blind, etc. And that's why these creators and their successors later pushed the envelope and added racially diverse characters to their comics as soon as social attitudes changed enough that they could get away with it, characters like Black Panther and the Falcon and Luke Cage and John Stewart.
So if they had created characters like the Fantastic Four or the X-Men a generation later, when racism didn't impose such limitations on creators, I'm sure they would've made them ethnically diverse to begin with. Because every one of them had personal experience with being the victim of discrimination and hate, and they knew how wrong it was. So insisting that these characters are only allowed to be white is not being true to the creator's intent -- it's actively betraying their intent.
It's also bizarrely behind the times. We've had black actors playing white comic book characters since Eartha Kitt was Catwoman back in 1967-8.
These comics characters created in the '40s and '60s aren't all white because there was some intrinsic story or character reason for it; they were white because society at the time was racist and not ready to accept more diversity. But the people who created these characters, people like Joe Simon and Jack Kirby and Stan Lee and Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster and Bill Finger, were all the children of Jewish immigrants. They all grew up personally experiencing bigotry toward their religion and nationalities, and the last thing they would've wanted was to endorse monolithic whiteness. That's why so many of their characters are implicitly coded as minorities despite having to be nominally portrayed as white -- Superman is an alien immigrant, the X-Men are mutants, the Hulk and the Thing are feared for their unusual appearance, Daredevil is blind, etc. And that's why these creators and their successors later pushed the envelope and added racially diverse characters to their comics as soon as social attitudes changed enough that they could get away with it, characters like Black Panther and the Falcon and Luke Cage and John Stewart.
So if they had created characters like the Fantastic Four or the X-Men a generation later, when racism didn't impose such limitations on creators, I'm sure they would've made them ethnically diverse to begin with. Because every one of them had personal experience with being the victim of discrimination and hate, and they knew how wrong it was. So insisting that these characters are only allowed to be white is not being true to the creator's intent -- it's actively betraying their intent.
It's also bizarrely behind the times. We've had black actors playing white comic book characters since Eartha Kitt was Catwoman back in 1967-8.
I really don't care. Growing up, I wasn't a fan of Genghis Khan. But I was of Johnny Storm and the Fantastic Four. As for the Malcolm X, I should have made that MLK Jr. Fan of MLK Jr, not so much MX.
But were you a fan of the color of Johnny's skin? Or were you a fan of his personality and powers and attitude? If it's the latter, then the ethnicity of the actor cast in the role should be completely irrelevant.
Have you refused to watch Smallville and Man of Steel and the Fox X-Men movies and the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe because they've changed the ethnicity of a few characters? Really, this has happened many times already, and the world hasn't ended and the movies haven't failed.
Have you refused to watch Smallville and Man of Steel and the Fox X-Men movies and the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe because they've changed the ethnicity of a few characters? Really, this has happened many times already, and the world hasn't ended and the movies haven't failed.
Which gets back to the point: Generic Super Hero team template #4....even less Fantastic Four than it was before the other changes that are apparent.