Fantastic Four Rebooted

For those who are unaware, Fantastic Four is another Marvel film series based on the comics. It’s a team of superheros who received their powers when an electrical storm attacked them when they were in space. Their leader, Reed Richards is a genius and gains the power of flexibility and stretchiness and becomes known as ‘Mr Fantastic’.

His wife or girl friend (it could vary) is Susan Storm Richards. She’s a regular Joe, very nice and gains the power of invisibility and becomes ‘The Invisible Woman’. Her brother, Johnny Storm is a socialist hound dog. He gains the powers of flammability – without burning himself and would later be called the human torch. And then there’s Ben Grimm, ex pilot and Reed’s best friend who gets the power of strength. He will be called the Thing.

The first Fantastic Four film was made in 1994. Constantine film bought the rights in 1986, and would lose those rights at the end of 1992. So when they made the film in 1994 they were confused on why they couldn’t release it to the public even though they’ve already released a trailer.

It starred Alex Hyde White as Reed Richards, Rebecca Staab and Sue Storm Richards, Jay Underwood as John Storm and both Michael Bailey Smith and Carl Ciarfolio as Ben Grimm. Also starring Joseph Culp as Victor Von Doom.

Then came Fox. In the year 2000 they purchased the rights to Fantastic Four, and 5 years later they released a film staring Ioan Gruffoard as Reed Richards, Jessica Alba as Susan Richards, Chris Evans as Johnny and Michael Chiklis as Ben.

Fox made two films out of the fantastic four, one in 2005 when the gang were up against evil genius dictator Victor Von Doom who wished to kill the Fantastic four. The second being in 2007 when the gang had to save Earth against the Silver Surfer and Galactus, a servant and a man who wanted to eat Earth.

The Reboot

The reboot is expected to hit cinema’s on the 19th June 2015. The screenplay will be written by Simon Kinberg and he will also be producing the movie (he also produces and writes the screenplay for the X-Men franchise), and directed by Josh Trank (Chronicle and The Kill Point).

The stars of the film will be  Miles Teller (Divergent and The awkward moment) as Reed Richards. Kate Mara (Captive and Transcendence) as Sue Storm Richards. Michael B. Jordan (Chronicle and That Awkward Moment) as Johnny Storm. Jamie Bell (Jumper and King Kong) as Ben Grimm. Dr Victor Von Doom will also be in it – played by Toby Kebbell (Prince of Persia and Wrath of the Titans).

An unusual quality to the cast is Michael B. Jordan and Kate Mara. The unusual thing is that despite the fact that their characters are brother and sisters, Jordan is black where as Mara is as white as they come. This is not a usual occurrence for brother and sister to be completely different in skin colours, it is not the norm. This brings to question whether or not they will remain as biological brothers and sisters and how the audience will react to this relationship.

Although the film is not released yet, it has already planned a sequel which is scheduled to be released on the 14th July 2017. Spoiler alert, a complete shocker is all the Fantastic Four members from the first film are still in it and are still played by the same actors. This suggests but does not confirm that all the fantastic four make it through the first in this series alive (which is completely obvious as Fox want to milk it for all it’s worth as they are doing with X-Men). It will also be produced by Simon Kinberg (X-Men).