career injection

How to give the Fantastic Four their powers back? We have some ideas...

We’re analysing what happened to you,” said Franklin Storm. “Whatever it is, we can find a way to reverse it.” If the folks at 20th Century Fox are engaged in similar analyses of the Fantastic Four right now – and you can bet your bottom line they are, whether in order to keep the rights from Marvel Studios or not – here are some directions: reverse to the source.

The truth about 2015’s super-flop remains murky. Did Fox’s ‘fixes’ clobber it senseless? Did Josh Trank lack the bridging film (after Chronicle’s promise) needed in his career to prepare him for directing something this supersized? Either way, the result was an imperfect storm of chafing parts. And the chafing began at a molecular level: despite strong casting, this was a film at odds with its material.

The point sticks because if there’s one wrong assumption people make after four failed F4 films, it’s that the comics are unfilmable. If there’s another, it’s that the comics need changing. Trank’s ‘body horror’ twist on Four- mula seemed fine on paper; in practice, it played like poleaxed potential.

Despite dated politics, Kirby/Lee’s ’60s fab Four comics buzz with exploratory wonder, alt-family fireworks and mad science. The Four weren’t called the Imaginauts without reason, so how come Fox’s rethink showed less imagination than the Octonauts? While the comics ventured from microverses to Atlantis and beyond, Trank’s film stretched from murky labs to lava-streaked rock faces and… stopped. It could have made Guardians Of The Galaxy look bore-some; instead, it made Fox look like guardians of the budget.

Likewise, Trank’s film seemed determined to rein in the comics’ fizzing character sparks. The ‘First Family’ set the standard for Marvel’s soap opera-ish – in a good way – storytelling but Miles Teller’s awkward fist bump was the closest we got to a revealing touch on screen. Poor Sue was frozen out altogether, hidden under headphones.

Failure will plunge the Four into deep freeze for now: but when they re-emerge, warm love for the source is vital. And the best carers would surely be Marvel Studios, whose way with emotionally focused altfamily dramedy and freaky sci-fi lit up Guardians. A Marvel-patented stealth return could work, slow-built on teasing cameos. Alternatively, Team Feige could try what worked with the once-botched Daredevil and hit TV: revel in the soap, don’t resist it. Either way, makeovers are reversible. You just fix what’s broken, not what isn’t. KH