Why Is It Impossible To Make A Good Fantastic Four Movie?

The Fantastic Four, Marvel's first family

The comic book characters who quite literally saved Marvel comics. Twice. If there was any karmic justice in the world

there would be a massively successful feature film franchise, and it would inspire a generation of creative minds

And yet... There he is. Unfortunately. The Fantastic Four were created by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee in November of 1961

The book quite literally reinvented the comic book form, ushering in bold new science fiction ideas, daring new formal inventions, and charming characters that have become international pop cultural icons

There have been four animated TV series and the live action films include the Roger Corman low-budget picture from 1994, which was never officially released, the Tim's story film Fantastic Four, which debuted in 2005, its sequel Rise of the Silver Surfer in 2007, and the attempted reboot by Josh Trank in 2015

Each of these films had aspects of the Fantastic Four that they got right, but by and large, they all missed the mark on what makes the characters tick

why the concept has endured for close to 80 years, and what people love about the property as a whole

At its core, the Fantastic Four is an adventure family drama. Reed is the aloof father figure

Sue is the emotional heart of the group and the mother, and Ben and Johnny are, more often than not, the bickering siblings

This character dynamic serves as the backbone for every important Fantastic Four story

They're a family. They have ups and downs, but they are living proof that blood is thicker than

well, cosmic rays. Look at the work that was done during the original Jack and Stan run

or how Sue Storm leaves Reed Richards during Civil War or how the family evolved to new heights during the Jonathan Hickman and Dale Eaglesham run All of these aspects of the characters typically flow from the fact that the team is set up as a family Everything is personal

Everything is emotional. We know one thing from the blood test. It's made us feel that our worst character defects are in fact our greatest strengths

One of the folkloric origin stories for the Fantastic Four is that Martin Goodman

Marvel's publisher, heard that DC was going to be doing a team of superheroes book

and wanted to beat them to the punch. So Jack Kirby and Stan Lee set about doing just that

But in an effort to set them apart, Kirby and Lee gave the characters interpersonal conflict

real world problems, and daily struggles. In 1961, this was truly a huge step forward

This spawned a superhero comic unlike any before it. Yes, the main characters had powers

that they received in a tragic accident with cosmic rays. And yes, they fought supervillains

like Dr. Doom and the Mole Man. But the real selling point of the book is that it evolved

It progressed into something truly special, a boundary-pushing science fiction adventure serial

Most of the very beloved and successful Fantastic Four runs center around them as adventurers

going out into space, the negative zone, or even the Earth's core, finding new life, meeting these entities

and attempting to exchange knowledge. It's Star Trek, but, you know, before Star Trek

The feature films that have been made thus far don't really embrace these concepts at all

They're trying to focus on templates and what had worked on films previously for superhero stories

and emulate that. The Roger Corman Fantastic Four existed purely to keep the rights of the characters

It is a fully produced film, but it was never actually intended to be screened theatrically

unbeknownst to everyone working on the film. We were very surprised. Because the thing is they finished the movie This version is a very faithful version to the initial comics almost to a fault The bottom line is they just didn have enough money to do everything they set out to do

Tim Story's version of the characters is mired in tropes and problems that

surrounded many of the 2000s era superhero films. Audiences and execs weren't necessarily

willing to go along with large, heady sci-fi, so you instantly end up focusing on the family drama

aspects of the stories. But you have to kind of play with kid gloves on the whole time

Especially when you really can't have the characters hurt each other, which just makes the film version of the family drama misunderstandings and bickering

Many of the best Fantastic Four comics present an ideological issue and then have Reed, Sue, Johnny, and Ben pick opposing viewpoints on it

However, none of this high-level sci-fi discourse is even attempted in the Tim Story films

It's just a superficial version of conflict. Case in point, Sue Storm in Rise of the Silver Surfer being upset at Reed for

dancing with some flirty girls during his bachelor party, or Ben Grimm being sad because he's a monster, blaming Reed for his situation

However, the movie does a horrible job at milking or stoking that conflict

because we need to fight a bad guy. So let's move along. The Josh Trank Fantastic Four has so many problems, who even knows where to start

Let's just begin with saying the Fantastic Four should not be a body horror film

That's just not what it is. But also, on a very basic level, they're not a family

Sue and Ben barely even have scenes with each other. None of the characters have an adoptive family mentality

You were my best friend. I'm not your friend. Let's just boil it down to this

At very specific times in the lifespans of the comic book movie Fox attempted to mold the Fantastic Four into a mirror image of what was really successful at the time instead of opting to do a faithful adaptation of the source material

The Tim Story movies are trying desperately to mimic the success of the first Spider-Man film

Josh Trank's film is desperately attempting to be taken seriously by mimicking a grounded and

Nolan-esque approach. Just like the title would suggest, the four members of the titular sci-fi

adventuring team should be at center stage in any Fantastic Four movie. Their character dynamics

and frictions are what make the week-to-week escapades of traveling to other worlds, dimensions

and times so fun. This dynamic of the clearly defined familiar roles and the high concept of

sending them on an adventure is the true heart of the Fantastic Four. It's the Batman's parents

got murdered in an alley, or the Spider-Man is responsible for his uncle's death story engine

that propels every one of the Fantastic Four's best stories. It's not as easily summed up in one sentence

but ironically, it's something that should translate really well to film and TV, and yet it hasn't

Why? Partly because of wrong time, wrong people. Corman never intended to make a real movie

Story didn't have the sci-fi chops or the deeper understanding of the characters

And sure, Chronicle was cool, but Josh Trank should just never have been allowed

anywhere near Fantastic Four. At the time these superhero movies were being made

everyone was trying to figure out how to perfect the superhero movie on screen

Now we've done that, people are attempting to figure out how to reinvent it

Winter Soldier is a superhero story by the way of an espionage thriller. Guardians of the Galaxy is a superhero film by the way of Star Wars

Wouldn't it be ironic if the comic book property that reinvented the comic book medium

could reinvent its cinematic successors? Gotta say, it's fantastic. Yes, it is