Seven years after its release, Josh Trank’s Fantastic Four reboot is regarded as one of the worst superhero films; even Trank himself has continued to disparage it. Some Marvel fans may not know that Moon Knight creator Jeremy Slater penned the script for the ill-fated movie. Fortunately, the film didn’t stop Slater from securing his dream job of working with Marvel. Now, with the reboot in his rearview mirror, the Moon Knight creator threw some serious shade in comparing his Disney+ experience to writing the poorly received revival.

The Fantastic Four writer has always been apologetic for messing up the team's cinematic future. Years after the box office and critical disappointment, Jeremy Slater finally got his chance to work with Marvel as the creator of the Disney+ series. The 2015 reboot came up again when a Twitter user asked him what lessons carried over from it to his new project. The writer couldn’t help but give a certain director some smoke in his Twitter response.

Shots fired! While he didn’t necessarily name the Fantastic Four director, it was obvious about whom he was talking. Josh Trank has placed most of the blame on then-20th Century Fox, but Slater allegedly pointed the finger at the Capone director for the story problems. According to the writer, his vision and the filmmaker’s vision didn’t effectively come together making the reboot. So there appears to be no love lost on the Death Note writer’s part.

Josh Trank had a unique perspective on the situation. He thought receiving the brunt of the Fantastic Four backlash was unfair, as he felt some of the blame should be shared with the studio and everyone else involved as well. He mentioned his ideas didn’t mesh well with others. The filmmaker also didn’t like his portrayal of being “uncommunicative” and “a rule breaker.” Trank even went as far as reviewing the Fantastic Four reboot, referring to it as “alight” and “two different movies” in one. So the revival gets no love from anyone involved.

Meanwhile, Jeremy Slater has rebounded from the Fantastic Four reboot’s disappointing reception. Along with the Disney+ and Netflix's The Umbrella Academy, the film and TV writer has continued to excel in his writing career. He was tapped to write upcoming two Warner Bros movies - Coyote vs. Acme and the Mortal Kombat sequel. He will make his directorial debut with the upcoming film Thread, which he will write also.

It's also worth mentioning that there’s another Fantastic Four reboot in the works, and this time, it's MCU-affiliated. Maybe if Moon Knight is a success, Jeremy Slater can join Jon Watts in crafting a new take on Marvel’s first family. Until that happens, Marvel fans can occupy themselves with the Disney+ series, which is currently streaming. More upcoming Marvel movies and television projects are premiering in 2022. In the meantime, you can watch Fantastic Four by subscribing to Disney+.

Remember Josh Trank’s Fantastic Four? I’ll give you a moment – in a crowded comic book movie landscape, paired with the 2015 film bombing hard, it may not pop right to mind. It stands as one of Marvel’s worst disasters, and while the film’s Invisible Woman, Kate Mara, may be content with the film fading into the background amidst her larger career with memorable performances in House of Cards and Shooter, she walked away from it with a valuable lesson to share about trusting her gut.

Following the viral success of his debut film Chronicle, a 29-year-old Josh Trank jumped straight into the deep end when he directed Fantastic Four with Michael B. Jordan, Jamie Bell and Miles Teller also starring. Trank and 20th Century Fox reportedly had creative qualms that led to the summer blockbuster-hopeful-turned-9% Rotten-box office bomb. Kate Mara spoke at length about the lessons Fantastic Four taught her:

Kate Mara’s recent words to Collider show that the actress may have had a strange feeling about the project while working on it, but was being told it was a good project for her to be a part of nonetheless. To date, the actress’ role of Sue Storm is arguably her most high profile, but it won’t go down in history due to the film’s bad reception by fans and critics alike. Mara continued:

Thanks to Fantastic Four, Kate Mara fell in love with husband Jamie Bell. The couple now have a daughter together after falling in love on the press tour (according to Mara on Andy Cohen) and then getting married in 2017. So there’s a silver lining right there for the actress, and as she says, she doesn’t regret doing the movie itself. However, in retrospect, she does wish she would have stood up for herself more on the project.

Kate Mara also recently called her time on Fantastic Four a “horrible experience” and cited wishing she had responded to the situation she was presented with differently. As she touched on, being on a Marvel set is typically a very good place to be. It would make sense she might try and trust her cast and crew despite the strange circumstances of the film, but in retrospect, she knows not to ignore the gut feelings she has in situations.

The Fantastic Four will reportedly be explored in the future by the MCU, as opposed to Fox’s former offshoot of the comic book franchise. In the meantime, check out the Marvel Cinematic Universe line-up here on CinemaBlend.

Tom Hardy’s Capone has now come and gone, and the reviews are arguably mixed to downright negative, with some critics divided between loving it and hating it. But one takeaway that most can agree on is this: Capone is a pretty bizarre movie. Sounds like that wasn’t by mistake, but rather, might have come from the wild advice Rian Johnson gave Josh Trank.

Once Fantastic Four director Josh Trank recently sat down with THR to talk about Capone and the negative reviews it was met with. Before Capone released, he hosted a screening for his director friends for honest feedback. And, as it turns out, rather than telling him to tone things down, they said the opposite. Here’s what Josh Trank said:

Sounds like solid advice. A movie that pulls its punches tends to not have the same impact and might lose a battle on all fronts. Of course, this advice is also coming from the director that made a lot of fans angry by subverting expectations in Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

To his credit, Josh Trank knew Capone wasn’t going to be for the casual moviegoer when he set out to make the movie. Considering the story is about Al Capone when he’s dying of syphilis, soiling his diapers, and losing his mind, it’s hard to believe it would appeal to mass audience. Still, that didn’t stop the studio from asking Josh Trank if they could give it a try.

While Josh Trank may have owned the weirdness, he may also have to own Capone's failures. Earlier this year, it was reported it made $2.5 million in 10 days from releasing on VOD. That’s a far cry from its $20.6 million dollar budget. It’s unknown how much its raked in overall, but it’s doubtful the unique gangster flick built momentum since its release.

Unlike Fantastic Four, where Josh Trank mostly abandoned the film after the critical and box office fallout, he doesn’t seem to be backing away from Capone. When addressing the negative reviews, he said he wasn’t surprised, but that he loves the movie very deeply and nothing can stop him from loving it.

Despite Capone being less than successful, Josh Trank and Tom Hardy are teaming up once again on a TV miniseries about the early days of the CIA. Tom Hardy will star and produce in the series. It’s not yet know where this show will end up landing. Hopefully they’ll screen it with Rian Johnson so he can give them some more wild advice.

It’s no secret that Hollywood studios and the directors they employ frequently butt heads over creative decisions. From core decisions about who will work on a film to the final cut, filmmakers and executives often can’t agree on the best way to bring a movie to the big screen. Directors speak about it all the time -- but the director of Fantastic Four’s recent revelation that he was forbidden from casting a Black actress as Sue Storm has raised some bigger questions about why the studio pushed back.

Josh Trank, who directed 20th Century Fox’s Fantastic Four, recently confirmed that in addition to casting Michael B. Jordan as Johnny Storm, he also intended to cast a Black actress to play his sister, Sue:

However, the director confirmed that he received some pushback from the powers that be on this front, and the role of Sue Storm eventually went to Kate Mara. Some would argue that a Black actress wasn’t required because Sue is adopted. Despite that, Josh Trank said on The Meaning Of podcast that in retrospect, he wishes that he had made a different choice regarding Fantastic Four:

Josh Trank’s revelation comes at the heels of a recently revived conversation about representation in Hollywood. He is far from the only person who has spoken to changes that many feel are long overdue in the film and television industry. As Black Lives Matter protests have occurred in all 50 states this week following the death of George Floyd, several discussions have arisen about how Black actors are treated - both by studios and by their castmates - in the film and television industry.

By speaking openly about his own experience with Fantastic Four, Josh Trank has showcased just one example of a time in which Hollywood shied away from casting a person of color in a prominent role. Studios like Disney and filmmakers like J.J. Abrams have used social media to affirm their commitment to racial justice and equality. Other brands and celebrities have spoken out and donated money to organizations devoted to effecting long-lasting changes. These statements - both verbal and financial - are an important step, but it’s currently unclear whether that commitment will extend to the people they put both in front of and behind the cameras in their future projects.

With Capone being Josh Trank’s first film since 2015’s huge bomb Fantastic Four, the writer/director is coming off a major disappointment. Trank cited studio meddling on one of Marvel’s all-time worst big-screen adaptations, but the filmmaker cannot blame anyone else for any ill words about his anti-gangster flick. Trank wrote the script, directed and edited Capone, and although it has suffered a lot of negative reviews, he’s still proud of the movie he made. In his words:

Josh Trank is standing by his filmmaking decisions for Capone despite its “rotten” score of 42% by critics and 31% by audiences. No matter the overall response, the writer/director can actually call the movie completely his own this time around and for that he is proud.

He believes the words in the reviews reflect the movie he planned to make, with Tom Hardy’s Al Capone suffering a torturous final year of his life with syphilis and undergoing mental deterioration, making him reportedly on par with a 12-year-old. Trank explained his vision for the film to IndieWire:

As Josh Trank puts it, Capone is the kind of movie that “kicks you in the balls” with its discomfort – such as with a couple messy scenes involving the notorious gangster shitting in his pants… and more than once. Capone didn’t get a chance to hit theaters, but it did soar to No. 1 on the iTunes charts in its first week of release.

CinemaBlend’s own Sean O’Connell reviewed the film positively with 3.5 out of 5 stars, giving Josh Trank praise for showing “real flair” in his filmmaking approach and giving a thumbs-up to Tom Hardy’s portrayal of Al Capone. Plus, Trank and Capone are already planning to work with each other for a limited TV show about the CIA.

Josh Trank’s breakout film Chronicle opened a ton of doors for the writer/director back in 2012. After the indie film impressed critics and made close to $130 million worldwide on a budget of just $12 million, Trank was attached to a Star Wars film, Venom and a video game adaptation. But he made Fantastic Four… and found himself in “movie jail” for the barrel low returns from the film.

After Fantastic Four, Trank finds himself drawn to making more independent films like Capone that challenge viewers. Capone is available to buy and rent on VOD. Check out CinemaBlend’s exclusive interview with Josh Trank on a recent episode of the ReelBlend podcast.

It's been a wild week in the film world, specifically the superhero genre. Because after years of fan campaigns and crowdfunding, the Snyder Cut of Justice League will finally become a reality on HBO Max. It's an unprecedented series of events, and one that has galvanized some fans with the ability to actually make change within the industry. Calls have also begun for the Ayer Cut of Suicide Squad, as well as the Trank Cut of 2015's ill-fated Fantastic Four movie. But it looks like filmmaker Josh Trank isn't co-signing the calls for an alternate cut of his infamous Fantastic Four.

Josh Trank's Fantastic Four had a ton of hype around it but unfortunately the movie failed to live up to expectations. Despite a strong cast, the movie was a critical and box office disaster when it hit theaters back in 2015. Trank has been open about his dissatisfaction with the movie over the years, often mocking it on social media. Now that trend has continued, as you can see in the blunt response to one fan calling for Fantastic Four to be re-released. Check it out below.

Well, that was honest. It looks like Josh Trank has no interest in returning to Fantastic Four and completing a director's cut of the blockbuster. He appears to have put his superhero movie behind him, instead working on other projects like Tom Hardy's Capone. Still, the Snyder Cut's confirmation made it seem like just about anything was possible.

Josh Trank shared his honest response to calls for Fantastic Four's Trank Cut over on Twitter. He regularly uses the social media platform to directly communicate with the public, often with self-deprecating jabs at his infamous superhero flick. The movie has been criticized for being so tonally different between its two acts, seemingly due to a change of writers.

The response to Fantastic Four was swift and unanimous, as the movie was panned for its lack of color, humor, and excitement. In fact, the movie is sitting at a dismal 9% on Rotten Tomatoes, and won a slew of Razzies. Josh Trank's blockbuster also failed to perform at the box office, with plans for a sequel quickly snuffed by 20th Century Fox.

Still, The Snyder Cut actually becoming a reality is a game-changer for the movie industry, as it the first time a project is being given this specific treatment. Warner Bros. made a deal with HBO Max, which will allow Zack Snyder to complete his vision for Justice League that was derailed once Joss Whedon signed on to complete the project.

Fans have already begun campaigning for the Ayer Cut of Suicide Squad, as David Ayer has been open about how studio interference changed his vision for the villain-centric DC blockbuster. And while some folks might also be focusing on Fantastic Four, Josh Trank isn't interested in getting the Snyder Cut treatment.

It should be interesting to see the future of the Fantastic Four, now that Disney control over the characters following its acquisition of 20th Century Fox. Moviegoers are hoping they'll finally join the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with plenty of fan castings hoping that John Krasinki and Emily Blunt end up playing Reed Richards and Sue Storm. But there hasn't been any indication of if/when that might occur.

Josh Trank's Capone is currently available to watch on demand. Be sure to check out our 2020 release list to plan your next trip to the movies.

Tom Hardy’s Capone, directed and written by Josh Trank, was originally meant to have a limited theatrical release before being sent to VOD. However, that quickly changed. With other movies like Trolls World Tour going straight to VOD, the studio behind Capone followed suit.

Now we’re getting a little taste of how much money it made going straight to homes. According to Deadline, Vertical Entertainment, the studio behind Capone, reported that it raked in upwards of $2.5 million dollars in 10 days.

Capone first released on May 12 and within its first three days climbed to the #1 spot on the iTunes charts. So, while it certainly has momentum, a strong release, and an impressive 10-day haul, it’s important to note that Capone’s budget was reported to be around $20.6 million. So the movie has a ways to go before becoming profitable.

Even though Capone had a strong VOD release, it got a mostly cold reception from critics, citing some of its merits while most saw only flaws. CinemaBlend’s own Sean O’Connell said Tom Hardy’s performance carries the movie, the movie's critical response has been largely negative. In fact, Capone's audience and critic score on Rotten Tomatoes are consistently low.

It’s impossible to know if Capone would have done better if it had a theatrical release. However, we might learn something from how other movies did. Earlier this year, Universal reported that Trolls World Tour broke records after it released the movie to VOD, also reaching the #1 spot on several charts and earning over $100 million in sales in three weeks-- a sum earned much faster than its predecessor Trolls five month run in theaters.

As one can imagine, the sudden shift of studios releasing movies directly to VOD has been controversial. After Universal announced they would put their movies direct to VOD, AMC announced they would no longer screen Universal movies. How it all shakes out remains to be seen.

The latest movie to released straight to homes is Warner Bros. Scoob! Originally intended to release in theaters on May 15, Warner Bros. decided to put it on VOD rather than push it back on the schedule. The latest reports indicates that animated movie has hit #1 for numbers of transactions.

While Capone releasing direct to VOD made quite a first impression among the movie community, so we'll have to see how it continues to perform on the charts in the weeks to come. We’ll keep you updated as the story progresses.

Josh Trank’s new film Capone is a bit of a fever dream that plays fast and loose with its details. Instead of documenting the classic criminal’s heyday in Chicago, Capone glides through the gangster’s final days of seclusion on a Florida estate, where neurosyphilis eats away at his mind and body. It’s deliberately unpleasant, but it makes for a captivating performance from Tom Hardy.

During a recent interview with USA Today, though, Josh Trank fesses up to a few details that he added into Capone that can’t be proven. And one of them is related to the comically exaggerated carrot that Al Capone’s doctor (played by Kyle MacLachlan) convinces him to chomp on instead of the cigars that are destroying the gangster’s lungs. Trank admits:

That sucks, because it’s funny to think that a doctor would “trick” a patient into quitting cigars just so that they could satisfy an oral fixation with a carrot. It leads to a very funny, Bugs Bunny-esque visual of Capone munching on oversized carrots that fit into his open mouth in much the same way that the cigar chunk did.

The carrot was kept hidden from the marketing materials for Capone, so we can’t capture an image of it. But later on in the USA Today interview, Josh Trank shares that when he texts with Tom Hardy, the two use the carrot emoji as a gag between friends, because of this silly addition to their serious drama. Trank reveals:

Capone is a real departure for Josh Trank, who burst on the scene with the extremely popular found-footage superhero movie Chronicle. His next career stop was a debacle, though, as Trank got caught up in a disastrous Fantastic Four adaptation, which set his trajectory back. For better or for worse, Capone is completely the movie that Trank set out to make, as he suffered no studio interference. He recently joined our ReelBlend podcast to open up about his process, and the results. Give this interview a listen!

Capone sidestepped a theatrical release (everything is sidestepping a theatrical release at the moment), and is currently available on paid VOD. This could be the new model for the immediate future, with other films (though far more family-friendly ones) such as Scoob! and Trolls World Tour making their way to streaming platforms. Josh Trank recently took to social media to thank everyone who gave his movie a try, whether they loved it or hated it. Where did you fall in Capone?

This poll is no longer available.

Tom Hardy has a new movie out, Capone, in which he stars as the real-life title character, Al Capone. Josh Trank directed the film, which chronicles the influential gangster's life post-incarceration. As the critical reviews pour in, Hardy and Trank are planning to switch over from working on cinematic features to collaborating on a TV show.

Capone helmer Josh Trank revealed he is developing a limited series centered around the CIA, which Tom Hardy is set to star in and produce. There is not a lot to go on in terms of details, such as exactly who Hardy will be playing. However, the overarching storyline is a bit more decipherable.

According to Capone’s Josh Trank, the untitled miniseries would take place in the years after World War II, and aims to revolve around the creation of the CIA. Trank teased that this story won't be the same one that everyone is already familiar with, and noted that some pretty controversial subject matter will get covered. Here's how he explained the idea to Collider:

To put some comparative perspective on time settings, Tom Hardy and Josh Trank's Capone obviously took place before Al Capone's death in 1947, while their upcoming TV show will likely start off in the years just after. Hence, the duo should already be quite versed in the period aesthetics and won't have to initially embrace a completely different sensibility than the one shared by their current film.

There is no word on when Tom Hardy and Josh Trank’s TV show will come out just yet, though both parties seem to be feeling good about the project, which has a timeline that is said to span decades. Will this project have to utilize that aging makeup utilized used to transform Hardy for Capone? It's quite likely, assuming he does indeed take on the starring role. He's locked in as an executive producer, and Trank claims Hardy aims to take on a lead role, but it will possibly depend on scheduling.

For now, viewers will have to make do with simply knowing the basic idea behind the Tom Hardy and Josh Trank project, as we wait to see where it might end up airing. I am curious if a streaming service such as Netflix or Amazon Prime will swoop in to pick it up, or if it might end up on a premium cable channel like HBO, or even somewhere like CBS or FX.

You have to imagine that a TV team-up between Tom Hardy and Josh Trank would garner interest from many corners, and probably ones where censorship is minimal. The collaboration between Capone’s star and the director is described as a limited series, which likely means that it won't last beyond a single season. Of course, that was the plan with HBO’s Big Little Lies before its second season was produced, so it is not like things cannot change.

This Josh Trank TV project will mark Tom Hardy’s latest venture onto the small screen. In recent years, he starred in the historical dramas Peaky Blinders and Taboo. Hardy took on the grunt-heavy lead role in the dark drama Taboo, which debuted back in January 2017. The FX series was renewed for a second season, but it has yet to premiere.

Tom Hardy landing a new TV show gets an up-vote from me. It will be interesting to learn who he'll be playing, and whether the character will be a real-life person or a fictional invention. I think the most intriguing thing about Josh Trank's announcement is the idea that his show will possibly offer new information or a new way to view the show's subject matter.

It will be interesting to find out how it all plays out. News of this Tom Hardy-led CIA series bodes well for his continued efforts on TV, and you can check out Hardy in Peaky Blinders on Netflix, along with several of his movies and many of 2020's big streaming shows. While you wait to see when this Hardy/Josh Trank TV show comes to fruition, enjoy this summer’s premiere schedule.

Films that were on our “can’t wait to see” list for 2020 are finding new ways to reach their audiences. Movie theaters may remain closed for the time being, but some first-run films are opting for paid VOD in order to reach audiences who are starving for fresh content. Trolls World Tour tested the model earlier this year, to impressive numbers. Judd Apatow will being the Pete Davidson comedy The King of Staten Island to VOD in June.

And then there is Scoob!, the family-friendly blast of nostalgia from Warner Bros. that brings the five memorable members of Mystery Inc. back to the screen for a new adventure. Scoob! finds a clever way of telling the origin story of Scooby-Doo, Shaggy, Velma, Daphne and Fred. Then it expands on the Hanna-Barbera universe in telling a much larger tale.

Writer-director Tony Cervone joined ReelBlend this week for a fascinating and hilarious conversation about his history in animation (he was behind Space Jam, the Animaniacs, Duck Dodgers and so much more), his love of Scooby, and a lot more. It’s a wonderful conversation, so dive in now!

In addition to the interview, this week’s episode of ReelBlend touches on Neve Campbell’s possible return to the Scream franchise, talk about New Mutants getting yet another release date (low-key lol), and then dissect Hamilton’s move to Disney+ and what that might mean for censoring Lin-Manuel Miranda’s award-winning musical.

The Blend Game this week as to do with the Coen Brothers. And that’s also a fantastic time to tee up reviews of Josh Trank’s Capone (as Trank is a noted fanatic of Joel and Ethan). Now that the movie ALSO is available on paid VOD, it’s a wealth of new content that the Blenders can check out, while we all wait patiently for theaters to open back up, in a safe environment for all.

Scoob! will be available to stream on Friday, May 15.

Director Josh Trank’s latest movie, Capone (previously known as Fonzo), has finally arrived. The feature starring Tom Hardy as a mentally deteriorating Al Capone arrives five years after the release of Trank’s last movie, Fantastic Four, which was a difficult filmmaking experience for him. While Trank had more creative freedom when it came to putting Capone together, he’s admitted that there was a period where he was anxious about the movie, specifically during the editing phase.

Josh Trank recently stopped by the ReelBlend podcast to talk about Capone, including the following anecdote about the studio inquiring about bringing another editor on board. As Trank recounted:

Josh Trank added that one of the ways he knew that it would be difficult to make Capone look more commercial is the fact that there are scenes of Tom Hardy’s Al Capone soiled himself in diapers, as by this point in his life, the notorious gangster’s mind is rotting from syphilis. So yeah, an element like that is definitely something that’s not going to draw in the average moviegoer.

Given his time on Fantastic Four, where his take on Marvel’s First Family’s origin story was altered by others involved with the production, it’s understandable that Josh Trank would have been worried for a bit that having another editor work on Capone could be problematic. However, as Trank noted, he had a better experience working on Capone and had built a trustworthy relationship with the producers and other behind-the-scenes players.

That, combined with his confidence in being able to realize his original vision for Capone, made Josh Trank comfortable with working alongside another editor, and evidently the movie ultimately came together to his liking. You can listen to ReelBlend’s full interview with Trank below.

In addition to Tom Hardy, Capone stars Linda Cardellini, Kyle MacLachlan, Jack Lowden, Matt Dillon, Noel Fisher, Kathrine Narducci and Neal Brennan, among others. This is Josh Trank’s third directorial effort, as before Fantastic Four, he made his filmmaking debut with Chronicle. Trank was also once attached to a Star Wars movie reportedly centered on bounty hunter Boba Fett, but he ended up leaving that project, contrary to the reports he’d been fired.

Capone is now available on VOD, and be sure to read CinemaBlend’s review of the movie. As for what’s set to his the big screen later this year, head to our 2020 release schedule for that information.

The evolution of the “gangster movie” has been interesting to witness. Hollywood kept the genre alive for decades, transitioning from tough guys James Cagney and Edward G. Robinson to the subdued threats of Robert De Niro and Al Pacino over the years, but what has remained consistent is that entries have always enjoyed focusing on the bloody rise and even bloodier fall of crime bosses who lived large, laid waste to many an enemy, then went out in a hail of bullets. “Top of the world, ma!”

Recently, though, storytellers have begun to deconstruct an intriguing period in the life of a gangster – the guilt-ridden retirement years of the rare survivors of a Mafioso existence. Crime bosses shouldn’t expect to live to see their twilight time. But Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman wrestled remorse and retribution as one former gangster came to terms with his past acts, and now we have Josh Trank’s Capone taking a magnifying glass to the tormented final days of the notorious gangster Al Capone.

They aren’t pretty. They’re hardly even lucid. Having served almost eight years in prison (after being convicted for tax evasion of all things), the former Public Enemy No. 1 was permitted to retire to Florida because neurosyphilis – an infection of the central nervous system – was destroying him from within. The end result is the polar opposite of a conventional gangster picture, featuring an engrossing tour-de-force performance from Tom Hardy in the lead role.

Tom Hardy buries himself in yet another captivating role.

Tom Hardy is a movie star, full stop. He’s also still likely to be able to parade around in public, because he goes to great lengths to disguise his movie star-worthy good looks whenever he graces the silver screen. He’s once again unrecognizable in Capone, shrouded in decaying makeup and a hairline-thinning wig to play a 48-year-old (!!!) Capone as what’s left of his life slips away.

There are glamorous star turns in Hollywood, and then there are what Hardy’s asked to do. Capone perpetually chomps on a cigar until he doubles over from coughing, spitting up chunks of lung into a waste basket. The gangsters eyes appear red. Not bloodshot, but actually colored red, as if they were in agony. Oh, and he’s incontinent, meaning he’s prone to shit the side of the bed he shares with his wife, Mae (Linda Cardellini), or fill the diapers he wears on a daily basis.

Hardy embraces all of the lunacy that comes with playing a failing Capone. Full scenes consist of the actor grunting or growling instead of talking. When he does speak, the accent is labored as it drifts from English to Italian. He communicates with icy stares or bursts of angry flailing. His messages are always received. But Hardy also grounds Capone, which could have devolved into satire if the actor didn’t bring menace to the psychological horror conveyed by Josh Trank’s screenplay. The writer/director wants to explore the paranoia that’s infused into a man who committed a number of atrocities, and Hardy expertly communicates the demons that peek out from Al Capone’s broken soul.

Josh Trank’s third film departs completely from his previous work and references everything from Coppola to Kubrick.

Josh Trank won’t want to be, but he’s destined to become at least part of the story of Capone (a movie that once went by the name Fonzo until Capone proved to be more marketable). After turning several heads with his debut found-footage superhero movie Chronicle, Trank was courted by Lucasfilm to direct a Star Wars film and did complete work on a Fantastic Four movie... until it was wrestled from his grip and reshot. Those who were hooked on his potential likely will give Capone a look to see if Trank actually can deliver.

If Chronicle captured the shaky-cam aesthetic of the late 2000s (thank you, Cloverfield), then Capone harkens back to the lush, deliberately paced crime dramas of the 1970s. Louisiana stands in for Florida in 1947, and cinematographer Peter Deming shoots the locations like a sun-dappled paradise, while costume designer Amy Westcott contributes to the glory and decadence that signifies Capone’s surface. That’s because under the top layer, the gangster’s soul and mind are eroding, and Trank shows real flair when he explores the nightmares that continuously plague Capone. In one thrilling sequence, Capone stumbles through a series of violent memories that create the mood of Shining-era Kubrick, an eerie and unexpected nod in this consistently surprising biopic.

Capone humanizes, and therefore deflates, the myth of the gangster.

You’ve seen gangster films that lionize the rule-breakers, frequently putting criminals on pedestals so that audiences often hope they’ll triumph over the law. Capone does the opposite of this. It punches holes through the mythology of Al Capone as a notorious crime boss, humanizing him as it humiliates him as a victim of his failing systems.

There will be a lot of conversation about one scene, in particular, where desperate FBI agents are trying to get any information they can out of Capone before his body completely gives out. While being interrogated, Capone shits himself. Loudly. Disgustingly. His attorney sneers at the federal agents, “Is this what you wanted?”

Well, it is what Josh Trank wanted. He’s more fascinated in the man than he is the myth, and the man was weakened and frail. He was ruthless, but delirious. He had power, but the fate of every human being also fell on Capone. No one lives forever, no matter how many gold-plated tommy guns you can hold in your hands.

Capone sidesteps the biopic formula. It wallows in its character’s dementia, making for an uncomfortable and unpredictable trip. But the movie is a trip, and Hardy’s double-fisted embrace of the irregular part makes this movie a must-see for any curious onlookers.

Capone will be available on VOD beginning on May 12.

Today, comic book movies have become the dominant form of life at the global box office. Many films based on both Marvel and DC characters have been huge successes at the box office and many of them have been equally popular with critics. One huge exception was the most recent Fantastic Four movie. The film, directed by Josh Trank, was rumored to have serious problems even before it hit theaters and the final result didn't win over many fans. Trank himself received the brunt of the criticism for the movie, and the director now says that he feels that was unfair.

It's been five years since Josh Trank directed a movie following the ill-fated superhero project, but Trank is back with a new film about the final days of Al Capone, and in the promotion of his new movie, he's talking more than ever before about his last one. The director says that the public's understanding of what what was going on behind the scenes wasn't really the way that it was. According to Trank...

Any film director largely ends up taking the bulk of the responsibility for any film they are part of. When the movie is a success they get the credit, possibly more than they deserve. When it's a failure, they take the blame, possibly more than they deserve. The reality, as Josh Trank tries to explain to Variety, is that he was actually just one of many people who was responsible for Fantastic Four becoming the movie that it did.

Josh Trank doesn't absolve himself of all responsibility, he admits that he is to blame, but believes he was only part of the problem. Trank hits back at the idea that he was uncommunicative during the production of Fantastic Four and instead believes the issue was that his communication simply didn't blend well with the people he was communicating with. Trank goes on...

Those of us on the outside will likely never know the entire truth of what happened during the production of Fantastic Four, but it wouldn't be the first time that a clash of perspectives and ideas led to a movie that felt muddled and unfocused, and it's difficult to argue that Fantastic Four isn't that.

Marvel's first family will get a third bite at the apple now that they're back home under the Marvel Studios banner. Certainly, Marvel seems to do a good job of bringing a singular vision and focus to its properties, so whatever difficulties the next Fantastic Four movie might have, it likely won't be this.

Remember Chronicle? The 2012 film cleverly fused found-footage horror and the comic book genre, and had director Josh Trank’s phone ringing off the hook for a while. Before he made 2015’s disappointing Fantastic Four, the breakout box office hit opened doors for the young filmmaker that almost had him working on films for Star Wars, Venom and a video game property. He could have made a Chronicle 2 too, but he did everything in his power for the sequel not to happen.

Josh Trank has revealed that a script for Chronicle 2 by the original film’s screenwriter, Max Landis, had been written a few years back. It would have been about a young girl who becomes obsessed with the one surviving character, Matt (played by Alex Russell), and builds his own Iron Man suit. Trank found the script to be just “fine” and “nothing to do with why I wanted to do” the first movie. So here’s how he stopped it from getting made:

And it never happened. It wouldn’t have been difficult to see Chronicle becoming a franchise, but Josh Trank was not into it. Who knows if it would have been made anyway, as Matt Landis, his collaborator on the found-footage success, has since been accused of sexual and emotional abuse by eight women.

When Chronicle scored a $22 million opening weekend (double its production budget) back in February 2012, it made 27-year-old Josh Trank a record-breaker. The director became the youngest filmmaker to have a movie open at the top of the box office charts. Chronicle went on to soar to $126.6 million worldwide and launch the careers of Dane DeHaan and Michael B. Jordan.

Following his directorial debut, Josh Trank was in talks to make the cancelled Boba Fett movie, make his own R-rated version of Venom inspired by The Mask, and adapt the video game The Shadow of The Colossus for the big screen, but it was Fox’s reboot of Fantastic Four that really caught his eye. In his words to Polygon, it “felt like the most rebellious thing to do.”

Five years after the flop, Josh Trank is back for Capone starring Tom Hardy. He wrote and directed the upcoming release about a 47-year-old Al Capone reflecting upon his life as the American gangster’s been freed from prison and suffering from dementia. The movie comes to VOD on May 12.

Would you have wanted to see another Chronicle movie? Vote in our poll below.

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It didn’t take that long for Fantastic Four director Josh Trank to leave his first mark on Hollywood, as in 2012, when Trank was just shy of 28 years old, he delivered Chronicle to the masses. The found footage sci-fi movie was met with positive reception and made over $126 million worldwide off a $12 million budget, but it left Trank in a dark headspace that fellow filmmaker Robert Rodriguez, recently of Alita: Battle Angel fame, helped pull him out of.

Before kicking off his professional filmmaking career, Josh Trank made a deal with his parents that if he didn’t get his first movie made by the time he was 27, he would quit. He picked that age because that’s when Steve Spielberg started working on Jaws. Well, Trank ended up accomplishing his goal, as he shot Chronicle at that same age.

However, two weeks after Chronicle’s release, Josh Trank, who thought that he’d “beaten Spielberg,” was feeling adrift, dealing with an increasing cigarette habit and having trouble embracing the “happiness” from his increased profile. So, as Trank informed Polygon during an extensive interview, he ended up punching through a wall in his house and cracked his hand on a steel beam.

Unsure about how to solve his problem, Josh Trank called up Robert Rodriguez, who he’d met during the Chronicle press tour. Trank described Rodriguez as “Yoda-esque” when they spoke, with the From Dusk till Dawn filmmaker talking with Trank about his own experiences with success and sending him a box of self-help guides.

It sounds like Robert Rodriguez was able to help Josh Trank clear his head, although to further cope, Trank focused on more work. He pitched a hard-R take on Venom to Sony, as well as briefly tackled a Shadow of the Colossus film adaptation, neither of which moved forward. Chronicle 2 was also put into development, but Trank wasn’t involved with that, and he even admitted he tried his best to stall progress on the sequel when it started picking up steam.

Ultimately Josh Trank was hired to direct a Fantastic Four reboot for 20th Century Fox, which saw Miles Teller, Kate Mara, Jamie Bell and Michael B. Jordan playing Marvel’s First Family, along with Toby Kebbell as Doctor Doom. The project was packed with behind-the-scenes drama, including rumors of irresponsible on-set behavior from Trank and Fox producers making significant changes to the movie without him, resulting in Trank tweeting a day before Fantastic Four’s release that what audiences would be seeing was not reflective of his creative vision.

Fantastic Four ended up both critically and commercially underperforming, resulting in a sequel being scrapped. Josh Trank also ended up quitting the Star Wars movie he’d been hired for months before Fantastic Four came out, contrary to the reports that he’d been fired. So while Robert Rodriguez was most beneficial to Trank in the aftermath of Chronicle, Trank still dealt with plenty of troubles in the entertainment industry.

Half a decade later though, Josh Trank is back in the public consciousness with Capone (previously known as Fonzo), which stars Tom Hardy as Al Capone, who’s done serving his 11-year prison sentence, and is suffering from syphilis and dementia. The movie also stars Linda Cardellini, Kyle MacLachlan and Jack Lowden, among others.

Keep checking back with CinemaBlend for more updates on Capone (which drops on VOD next Tuesday, May 12) and other projects Josh Trank is working on. As for Robert Rodriguez, he’s attached write, direct and produce the superhero movie We Can Be Heroes for Netflix.

Josh Trank has had a somewhat unique journey when it comes to his directing career. His low budget, found-footage movie -- Chronicle -- launched him into newfound success and, as a result, several projects were thrown his way, including his own Star Wars project. However, after the critically panned Fantastic Four bombed at the box office, his career took a significant dip.

Afterward, Josh Trank disappeared for a while, but has now returned with his latest movie Capone, starring Tom Hardy as the titular character. But many still have questions about his scrapped Star Wars film. Recently, Trank set the record straight on what happened with the project. Here’s what he said:

These comments to Polygon are somewhat surprising as initial reports years ago claimed Josh Trank was fired from the project.

This supposed firing came on due to the behind-the-scenes drama with Fantastic Four. Josh Trank’s initial cut of the film apprently didn’t sit well with Fox producers. In an effort to save it, they came in and made significant changes. But to make matters worse, rumors swirled of irresponsible on-set behavior from Trank. The constant back and forth drama reportedly created a lack of confidence from Lucasfilm and Kathleen Kennedy at the time, which it sounds like Josh Trank knew and decided to bow out as a result.

Now that the drama is over, it looks like Josh Trank has put it all behind him and is moving on to new things. He even wrote his own self-deprecating review of the Fantastic Four, and it’s pretty funny. He gave it two out of five stars, which is still higher than most critics.

As for Josh Trank’s Star Wars project, not many details were released at the time of what it could be. Lucasfilm had a Star Wars lineup in motion, from the new Star Wars trilogy to all the anthology films like Rogue One and Solo: A Star Wars Story. At the time, the rumors claimed that Trank's movie was likely about Boba Fett, and the studio was even said to be announcing it at an event, but cancelled that idea when he departed.

One of the reasons Josh Trank’s Fantastic Four movie didn’t do well with Fox’s executives was because it was uncomfortable and dark, a tone he used in Chronicle. It seems like Trank is continuing down that dark and gritty tone with Capone. From the looks of the trailer, audiences can expect to journey into the mind of Al Capone as he loses his power and descends into madness behind bars. Josh Trank seems right at home with this film. You can catch it on VOD on May 12.

Since Inception, Tom Hardy has performed a balancing act between playing the action hero in movies like Mad Max: Fury Road to embodying more nuanced, villainous roles like Bane in The Dark Knight Rises or John Fitzgerald in The Revenant. Now, he’s playing the villainous Al Capone in the soon-to-be-released, Capone.

There’s no doubt that Tom Hardy fully commits to a role. Whether he’s packing on the pounds as Bane or playing murderous twins in Legend, he steps up to the plate every time. His latest role as Al Capone doesn’t look to be any different, especially from this horrifying, new still of him in character that was released on social media. Take a look:

Though I desperately want to look away from this haggard and grizzled version of Tom Hardy, it’s also hard to not look in awe at the morbid transformation. The makeup is absolutely on point, but his pained and troubled eyes really sell the whole look. It's simply terrifying.

And it would appear that this radical and disturbing photo won’t be the only part of the full Al Capone transformation. Tom Hardy is known for his strange voices, his Bane voice is practically legendary at this point, but he’ll also have a strange way of speaking when playing Al Capone. While prepping for the role, Tom Hardy said he took inspiration from Bugs Bunny when formulating a voice for the iconic gangster.

Rather than focusing on Al Capone at the height of his power and control, Capone, originally titled Fonzo, is about Al Capone at the tail end of his life, which he spent in prison as he suffered from dementia and faced his violent past.

Capone is directed by Josh Trank, who most comic book fans likely remember for helming the critically panned Fantastic Four. If you recall, Josh Trank rose to sudden acclaim after his low-budget superhero movie, Chronicle, received considerable attention. Shortly after, not only was he given the keys to a beloved superhero franchise in Fantastic Four, but he was also slated to direct a Star Wars movie before being fired from the project.

Still, the director may be in more of his element directing a dark, morose movie about a grumpy gangster in prison. Fellow director Rian Johnson had a chance to see the movie and said it was “batshit bonkers in the best possible way” and recommended everyone go see it.

I’m personally conflicted about this movie. On the one hand, Capone could be worth the watch just to see Tom Hardy knock another role out of the park. Then again, it’s troubling that the movie went direct to VOD. And as a superhero fan, it's hard not to think about how he handled Marvel's First Family. If you’re curious to see more, definitely check out the trailer below:

Capone hits VOD on May 12.

It’s been two years since Fantastic Four director Josh Trank’s Al Capone movie, with Tom Hardy portraying the infamous Chicago gangster, began filming. In the years since, there’s been much talk about it, and certainly no word about when it would finally come out… until today. It’s been announced that Capone, the movie formerly known as Fonzo, is finally arriving next month.

Now you can get your first taste of Tom Hardy as the eponymous character with the Capone trailer. Take a look!

Rather than focus on Al Capone at the height of his power in the 1920s and early 1930s, Capone follows the gangster after spending nearly a decade in prison. Now living his remaining days in Florida, the gangster suffers from syphilis, which in turn has given him dementia, although some don’t buy that Capone’s mental faculties aren’t all they used to be, and that it’s really an act.

In any case, it comes to light that Al Capone tucked away a large sum of money, and the authorities are attempting to figure out where it’s located. While it looks like Capone will delve a little bit into when Al Capone was at the top of the underworld food chain through jumbled memories, the main hook of the story looks to be him attempting to remember where these riches are hidden as he's surrounded by his family and the FBI lies in wait.

With Al Capone having been played by so many actors over the decades, including Robert De Niro in The Untouchables and Stephen Graham in Boardwalk Empire, it’ll be interesting to see how Tom Hardy’s portrayal measures up. At the very least, Hardy’s interpretation of the character sounds quite gruff. The Capone cast also includes Linda Cardellini, Kyle MacLachlan, Jack Lowden, Matt Dillon, Noel Fisher and Kathrine Darducci.

You’ll notice in the tweet containing the trailer that Josh Trank called Capone his “cut.” Shortly before Fantastic Four was released in summer 2015, Trank posted in a tweet deleted shortly thereafter that the version of the movie being shown in theaters was not his original cut, so now he’s assuring folks that his original vision for Capone has been kept intact. The movie centered on Marvel’s First Family went on to critically and commercially underperform, resulting in plans for a sequel being scrapped.

It was also revealed today that Capone will be distributed Vertical Entertainment (in partnership with Redbox Entertainment), which primarily releases direct-to-video content. Josh Trank clarified in another tweet that while Capone was originally intended to be a theatrical release, it’s now headed to streaming/VOD and will be available to rent for 48 hours, though the filmmaker still hopes the movie can be shown on the big screen later this year.

Capone will be released on May 12. As for the movies still set to hit theaters in the near future, keep track of what’s on the way with our 2020 release schedule.

Several weeks ago a war began that is apparently still raging. Director Martin Scorsese, the man behind some of the greatest films in the history of the art form, made some negative comments about Marvel movies and everybody sort of lost their grip. Unfortunately, it seems like nobody, on either side of the argument, can let things go.

Two days ago Martin Scorsese's The Irishman made it's long anticipated Netflix debut and everybody who had three and a half hours free on a Wednesday (read: not people with 2-year-olds) jumped right into it. One of those people was director Josh Trank, who added fuel to the Scorsese vs. Marvel fire with a tweet that received such massive backlash, he has since deleted it. Here's the original text.

Clearly, Josh Trank's tweet was meant specifically to draw the ire of those who were upset by Martin Scorsese's original comments, and it appears that he succeeded. Trank could have simply said The Irishman was a great movie and left it at that. That's not exactly a controversial opinion. Pretty much everybody agrees the film is great and some are calling it Martin Scorsese's best work ever.

However, by including Marvel in the comment, Josh Trank, who knows a thing or two about superhero movies, essentially picked a side in a battle that won't just go the hell away, and so those that are keeping it alive on the Marvel side, jumped all over it. While Trank may have been trying to get a rise out of people, it seems it may have been a bit more than he anticipated. Rather than engaging with the attackers, or even simply ignoring them, he deleted the tweet that caused the uproar.

As a test balloon, this entire experience proves that people still aren't over this whole Scorsese/Marvel thing. Even after the director wrote an op-ed in the bloody New York TImes in which he more deeply explained his feelings on Marvel's films, in a way that's pretty hard to argue with, there are still people with very serious opinions on this that they feel they need to express.

It's already beginning to feel like this is going to become one of those exhausting conversations online that will never end. It may die down for a while, after The Irishman has run its course in public, though, if the movie views for awards, as many expect it will, it could be March before we get there.

Then, in two or three years when Martin Scorsese makes another movie, it will all be brought up again. I seriously hope I'm wrong about this. Hopefully, we can all agree that lots of movies great, lots of movies have problems, we can all love movies that have problems, and everybody can have different opinions on all of that.

Fantastic Four director Josh Trank should give himself an extra star for self-awareness and self-deprecating humor. I don't really know why he chose this moment to review his much-maligned 2015 Fox Marvel movie on Letterboxd, but not only did he do that, he tweeted out a link to it (then made it his Pinned Tweet) as a statement to the world.

Josh Trank gave his "Fant4stic" movie two stars, which is one more than most critics. Fantastic Four has a 9% rating on Rotten Tomatoes from 254 critics and an 18% audience score from 137,571 users.

The whole review is spot-on. If Fantastic Four had been as fun to watch as the director's review is to read, there wouldn't be a problem. Here's just a portion:

That's when Josh Trank gets reflective, trying to figure out if he made the movie the cast deserved to be in or not.

Josh Trank came to Fantastic Four after directing the well-received 2012 movie Chronicle, which also co-starred Michael B. Jordan. However, Trank adds in his review that he doesn't regret any of the Fantastic Four experience. It's a part of him and his story.

That's it, other than his own version of a post-credits scene -- a P.S. noting his girlfriend said he should’ve reviewed more of the film and less about himself. His answer? A shrug emoji.

To me, that's a four-star review for a movie that ... well, yeah, it deserved to be rated 2 stars at best. He's right to rate it low, but now that almost five years have gone by, time has healed the wounds enough for fans to be more magnanimous.

Fantastic Four had a lot of problems behind-the-scenes. After the harsh reviews started coming out, Josh Trank tweeted that, a year before the release, he had a fantastic version of the movie that would've gotten great reviews ... but you'll probably never see it.

So maybe that's why he's doing this now -- piggybacking on the #ReleaseTheSnyderCut wave that may actually help Zack Snyder get his cut of Justice League on HBO Max or wherever.

Josh Trank has kept a light attitude about Fantastic Four in the past few years. When Captain Marvel had a big opening and someone tweeted that no superhero movie fails, Josh Trank replied with a perfect "hold my beer" response. He also dragged himself shortly after that to promote Us.

At least Fantastic Four isn't the biggest box office bomb of Marvel's Fox universe, since it was recently dethroned for that unfortunate title by Dark Phoenix.

Will Josh Trank get his wish, and Ant-Man director Peyton Reed will make the next Fantastic Four movie? After the Disney/Fox deal, Marvel's Fantastic Four characters are now part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige hinted to the Fantastic Four in Phase 5, so we'll have to see where things go from here.

As soon as Disney bought Lucasfilm, a new trilogy was announced and it was made clear that new Star Wars movies weren't going to be going away even after that was done. The franchise was here to stay. However, the attempts to bring Star Wars back haven't come without a series of growing pains.

We're on the verge of the end of the promised trilogy, but even that didn't arrive quite as advertised, and it seems that every time a Star Wars movie is rumored or announced, it runs into problems. Yesterday Star Wars hit yet another hurdle with the former Game of Thrones creative team working on the next film taking their ball and going home, but they're not the first, not by a long shot.

Josh Trank - Boba Fett

It wasn't long after the new trilogy was announced that another set of three films were also put into production by Lucasfilm. These "anthology" movies would tell new stories in the galaxy far, far away, not directly related to the characters that made up the core of the Skywalker Saga. One was set to be a movie about the team that stole the original Death Star plans, one became an origin story of fan favorite Han Solo, and the third was reported to be a movie about bounty hunter Boba Fett.

However, that movie never came to be. Josh Trank, the director of Chronicle, was set to helm the project. There have been conflicting reports about what exactly happened, but one of the reports indicated that the clusterfuck that was the Fantastic Four reboot led to Lucasfilm's decision to cut ties with Trank. Officially, the decision to part ways was chalked up to "creative differences" (get ready to hear that phrase a lot in this piece) though Trank has also said he made the decision to walk away.

Phil Lord And Christopher Miller - Solo: A Star Wars Story

The most high-profile departure for a Star Wars movie came in the case of the second of the anthology films that were planned. In this case, Lucasfilm took the unorthodox approach of parting ways with a director, or in this case, directors, while filming on the Han Solo-led movie was still going on. It's not unusual for a director to leave a project before shooting starts, or even after it's done, but in the middle of filming is almost unheard of.

This means that the "creative differences" between Lucasfilm and Phil Lord and Christopher Miller must have been extensive. The stories that came out of the production were that the directors weren't relying much on the script, causing a rift with longtime Star Wars writer Lawrence Kasdan, and that the pair were shooting a significant number of takes of most shots, causing production to take much longer than planned, though Miller has denied some of that. Ron Howard was brought in to finish the film.

Colin Trevorrow - Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker

While most of the difficulties that Star Wars had in finding directors had been limited to the spinoff films, the core trilogy hasn't been entirely safe either. While J.J. Abrams and Rian Johnson both wrote and directed movies with zero drama (at least none that made it public), the same was not the case with Star Wars Episode IX. Back in the fall of 2017, in the run up to The Last Jedi, it was announced that Jurassic World director Colin Trevorrow would not be helming the final episode of the trilogy as originally planned. Once again, creative differences were faulted for the change.

There were a couple of different reports supposedly revealing why Lucasfilm decided to make this change. In one, Colin Trevorrow was somebody who was difficult to work with, and the studio simply decided it didn't want to deal with that. In another, Lucasfilm head Kathleen Kennedy was unimpressed with Trevorrow's script for the movie. Whatever the reason, Star Wars: The Force Awakens director J.J. Abrams, somebody who already made one movie with no issues, was brought back to finish the trilogy he started.

David Benioff And D.B. Weiss - Untitled Star Wars Trilogy

And that brings us to the newest members of the 'I almost directed a Star Wars movie" club. David Benioff and D.B. Weiss are, no matter what you thought of the last season of Game of Thrones, two in-demand talents. They're in such high demand that not only did they come on board to make Lucasfilm's first post-trilogy Star Wars movie, they also signed a massive development deal with Netflix. The latter, in this case, appears to have been the problem.

It seems that with everything that was associated with David Benioff and Dan Weiss' Netflix deal, the pair simply did not have the time to work on Star Wars. In this case, it's being presented that the duo made the decision to walk away from Star Wars because they did not have the time for it. Although, there are those who are reading into Kathleen Kennedy's statement on the departure, which may indicate that Lucasfilm was even less excited to have the two hang around after the Netflix deal.

One thing seems clear, making Star Wars movies is not easy. The franchise seems to have had more problems than many other blockbuster franchises when it comes to finding the right talent for the job. A single issue like the most recent Game of Thrones showrunner news might be expected, but seeing this happening over and over again makes me wonder exactly what and where the difficulty is.

Who knows what any of this means for the future of Star Wars? Rian Johnson is allegedly working on a new trilogy and he's already shown an ability to work with Lucasfilm, so I would not expect any major problems there. Of course, Johnson hasn't committed to directing all of the movies he's writing, so more directors might be needed.

On the plus side, this potentially opens the door to new batch of writers and directors who might be very willing to work on Star Wars related projects. There are multiple generations who have grown up with the franchise, who might want to make their mark on the galaxy, far, far away. It will be interesting to see who steps up and whether they can hold onto the gig.

Sometimes a reboot manages to successfully bring a superhero back onto the big screen and portray them in a new light while still staying true to the source material. And then there’s Fantastic Four, which was a critical and commercial bomb to the point that it killed 20th Century Fox’s future plans for this iteration of Marvel’s First Family. Four years after Fantastic Four’s release, director Josh Trank has no issue with trashing his own movie, as evidenced by this latest tweet.

This past weekend saw the release of Jordan Peele’s Us, and like many moviegoers, Josh Trank decided to check it out. Unlike most moviegoers, though, Trank has a movie that was not well-received by the public, and evidently the passage of time has allowed him to poke fun at his time helming Fantastic Four, as he’s quite comfortable declaring on Twitter that Us is the complete opposite of his 2015 movie. That’s not saying much, although Us has indeed been met with critical acclaim and made over $174 million worldwide so far. If you have a choice of watching one of these two movies, it’s pretty clear which one you should pick.

This comment follows a couple of weeks after Josh Trank responded “hold my beer” to a tweet declaring that no superhero movie fails. It is true that for the most part nowadays, superhero movies are usually at least commercially successful, with a good portion of them also doing well among critics. Fantastic Four was not one of those movies, and while much of the blame was placed at Trank’s feet for its poor performance, the director wrote in a tweet deleted shortly thereafter that the final cut of the movie was not the one he’d planned on giving to audiences, indicating studio interference. In any case, Trank appears to have made peace with Fantastic Four and doesn't have a problem making fun of himself for it, though it doesn’t sound like we should expect more self-deprecating comments from him anytime soon.

Originally the plan was for Fantastic Four to kick off a new film series, with the sequel coming out in June 2017. However, following the movie’s disappointing performance, Fantastic Four 2 was later removed from the calendar and eventually cancelled. While Fargo showrunner Noah Hawley has been working on a Doctor Doom movie, with Fox now under the Disney banner, it’s unclear if that project will still move forward or if Marvel will put its own Fantastic Four movie into development that better fits within the Marvel Cinematic Universe mythology. As for Josh Trank, his next movie is Fonzo, which stars Tom Hardy as Al Capone as he wrestles with dementia following his stint in prison.

Stay tuned to CinemaBlend for any major updates concerning the next chapter of the Fantastic Four film franchise, but in the meantime, you can look through our Marvel movies guide to learn what’s coming down the pipeline in Phase 4, as well as our 2019 release schedule to plan your trips to the theater later this year accordingly.

Many superhero movies like to emphasize that their characters are flawed but, more often than not, they still save the day and slay at the box office. But not all superheroes win in the end. This weekend, Captain Marvel raced to a $153 million domestic opening, leading at least one pontificator to spout that no superhero movie fails. Well, Josh Trank -- director of the ill-fated 2015 Fantastic Four movie -- had something to say about that:

Burn. On himself. It's true, though. Captain Marvel's domestic gross alone is already almost more than Fantastic Four made during its entire worldwide run. Not that Fantastic Four is the only movie to tank (or Trank?). Still, since he brought it up...

Fantastic Four only made $56,117,548 at the domestic box office and $111,860,048 internationally for a total of $167,977,596 worldwide. That's just four years ago, and it only made $168 million worldwide. That was off a reported production budget of at least $120 million, per Box Office Mojo, and the film was ultimately said to have lost around $100 million.

That's not good.

Captain Marvel has already made $455 million worldwide, and it just opened. And Captain Marvel isn't even the biggest superhero movie of all time. It may or may not follow previous MCU movies and the DC movies that have crossed the $1 billion mark. But clearly it's doing a lot better than Fantastic Four ever did, and it's not a given that any and every superhero movie will succeed. That was the self-deprecating point Josh Trank seemed to be making. Sometimes superhero movies do fail.

Fox's 2015 adaptation of the Marvel Comics characters was panned by both critics and fans. Fantastic Four only has a 9% rating from critics and 18% rating from audiences on Rotten Tomatoes. It got a C- CinemaScore from polled moviegoers. It "won" Razzies for Worst Director; Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-off or Sequel; and Worst Picture (tying with Fifty Shades of Grey).

Fantastic Four was infamously troubled, with Josh Trank reportedly clashing with 20th Century Fox. A lot of blame was put at his doorstep, alleging the director behaved erratically. Trank criticized the final cut right before its release, writing in a later deleted tweet, "A year ago I had a fantastic version of this. And it would've received great reviews. You'll probably never see it. That's reality though."

One of the Fantastic Four producers tried to explain what went wrong, saying it wasn't just one thing. One of the screenwriters also apologized to fans for the movie going wrong.

You could blame lack of interest in Fantastic Four vs. other Marvel characters, but the 2005 Fantastic Four movie -- the one with Chris Evans as Johnny Storm/The Human Torch -- made $330.5 million worldwide. That's not exactly blockbuster level these days, but it was off a reported $100 million production budget. So a modest profit was probably made.

Still, it is pretty rare for major superhero movies to fail these days. The DCEU took a beating from critics for a while -- and there was certainly trouble behind-the-scenes, especially with Justice League -- but even the least successful of the six DCEU movies (Justice League) made $658 million worldwide. Meanwhile, the least successful MCU movie was The Incredible Hulk in 2008, which "only" made $263.5 million worldwide off a reported production budget of $150 million. Halle Berry's Catwoman only made $82.1 million in 2004 (off a reported $100 budget), and Green Lantern also only made $219.8 million worldwide in 2011 (reported $200 million budget).

This is not to restart the never-ending Marvel vs. DC battle. It's just to show it's rare but not unheard of for a superhero movie to flop the way Fantastic Four did. We keep hearing that moviegoers just love superhero movies -- like we'll see anything with a superhero in it -- but it's clearly not that simple. Just let it be a lesson, a reminder, a fear to keep your kids in line. This too could happen to YOU if you don't eat your vegetables and finish your homework.

Now that Fox and Disney are joining forces, and the Fox Marvel characters will fall under Disney's Marvel umbrella, fans are curious to see what might happen with characters like the X-Men and Fantastic Four.

As we wait for updates on that front, keep up with everything that's playing in theaters this year with our handy 2019 movie schedule.

Fantastic Four 2 has a release date, a cast... but no real hope of happening any time soon. The date, for the record, is June 9, 2017, but since there has been no movement on the sequel, we expect that to fade away very soon. That doesn't mean, however, that the stars of the recent Four reboot aren't entertaining the option of doing Fantastic Four 2 at some point in the near future. However, when Kate Mara -- who played Sue Storm in the reboot -- is asked about the sequel, her answer is On Message, but her body language says, "Stop asking me about this, please." Mara said:

Perfect. That is the textbook response, and exactly what Kate Mara should say when asked by an outlet about a possible Fantastic Four 2. We know that the origin story didn't work. She knows that the origin story didn't work out. But, because she's under contract, she's required to leave that door open to any possible follow up. However it's more HOW Kate Mara answered the question on camera. She's not great at hiding her indifference to the possibility of Fantastic Four 2. Watch her body language in this IGN interview, and decide for yourselves.

Not quite gung ho. Not exactly, "Where do I sign on the dotted line?" And yet, who can blame Kate Mara. The experience of making -- and especially of promoting -- Fantastic Four was a draining and soul-sucking process because of the behind-the-scenes muckraking that reportedly ruined the version of the film that she and her director, Josh Trank, tried to make. Several people involved with the production have gone on record to talk about too many cook being in the Fantastic Four kitchen, and I can totally understand why Mara'd be hesitant to go through that grind one more time.

However, I think that her words suggest something else, entirely. When she uses phrasing like "whatever they may or may not have in store for us," or "we would love to actually play these characters in another way," is she implying that The Fantastic Four could make the leap over to Marvel? Normally, that would be crazy talk. Fox has a hold on the rights to the characters. But as we recently saw with Spider-Man, studios can figure out how to play nicely, and it could lead to a new translation of some classic characters.

Now, if that were to happen, would Marvel maintain the same team? Would Mara get bounced, the way Andrew Garfield got traded for Tom Holland? It's too soon to tell, but in the cutthroat world of superhero casting, anything is possible.

After a seven-year absence from theaters, 20th Century Fox rebooted the Fantastic Four last year to give Marvel’s First Family another shot at success on the big screen. Unfortunately for them, the darker tone and deeper focus on sci-fi didn’t guarantee a good story, and the film was a critical and commercial flop, the latest in a string of cinematic bad luck for the characters. That makes it especially good fodder for an "Everything Wrong With…" video. If you have 20 minutes to kill, then buckle up.

In keeping with their usual M.O., the folks over at CinemaSins turned their attention to all the problems with 2015’s Fantastic Four. They start off with Reed Richards as a young boy and how someone who’s "smarter than God" was still in a public school. Fast forward seven years, and then we get into the real meat of the movie’s offenses, from how Victor was somehow employed at the Baxter Foundation despite his instability to how ridiculously long the origin story aspect was. Don’t even get them started on that final climactic battle. By the time the video is finished, the movie tallied 149 "sins." Surely they could have found at least one more to make it an even 150, right? Also, they bring up a question that’s been on many fans’ minds for years: why isn’t Tim Blake Nelson (who played Dr. Harvey Allen) The Leader in the Marvel Cinematic Universe yet?!

It’s usually clear that these "sin" videos nitpick a lot of minor details and issues, but for Fantastic Four, most of these criticisms feel appropriate. Overall consensus was that the movie was a major disappointment, which in hindsight isn’t surprising given all the problems behind the scenes. Even director Josh Trank tweeted about how the Fantastic Four moviegoers would see wasn’t his version, and while he quickly deleted the tweet, the damage was done days before it was released. The movie subsequently earned overwhelmingly negative reviews from both critics and fans, and it later earned five Razzie nominations.

Because of Fantastic Fourr’s poor reception and small gross, it’s unclear if the series will continue. Originally Fox set Fantastic Four 2 for release in 2017, but last November they took it off their schedule. That doesn’t mean it’s been officially cancelled yet, but right now things aren't looking good. If the Fox executives are still not certain about moving forward, maybe they should look at these "sins" for themselves. That might make the decision a lot easier.

If you want to spot these mistakes for yourself, Fantastic Four is available on DVD, Blu-ray, and digital purchase, but you’re probably better off just watching this video again if you have even the slightest interest in seeing this iteration of the superhero family.

Well, it was always going to happen, wasn’t it? After flopping so viciously that 20th Century Fox has already decided that a sequel just isn’t worth the hassle, and been roundly savaged by critics, Honest Trailers have now come in and whacked Josh Trank’s failed attempt at a Fantastic Four reboot square in the nards too. And it makes for some rather scintillating viewing. Take a glance, and brace yourself for the pain:

Those of you that missed out on Fantastic Four earlier this summer, or knew that it was in cinemas but wisely made the choice to completely ignore that it even existed, probably won’t realize just how much of a mess the Fox blockbuster was. Sure, the fact that it only grossed $168 million and currently has a 10% percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes is proof of its failure, but you really had to sit down and feel time slip past you while you endured the colossal mess to understand its awfulness. Honest Trailers’ savaging of Fantastic Four does a pretty good job of that, though.

John Trank, who was handed the responsibility of directing Fantastic Four after his stellar work on Chronicle, had insisted that he did just as good a job on his follow-up. In fact, to prove to fans how good his work on Fantastic Four really was, Josh Trank decided on the eve of its release he’d release a specifically worded Tweet that would surmise where exactly the film went wrong in 140 characters or less. It carefully explained, "A year ago I had a fantastic version of this. And it would’ve received great reviews. You’ll probably never see it. That’s reality though."

Unfortunately people didn’t quite get the gist of what Trank was aiming for, and instead, as Honest Trailers points out, they focused on the fact that his reboot was somehow completely different to Tim Story’s campy Fantastic Four films of the mid-00s but still just as awful. Which really was quite a feat.

In the end, there are plenty of different reasons to focus on for why Fantastic Four failed. You could pinpoint the complete lack of energy that exists between the leading foursome. Or the fact that the quartet are never actually referred to by their collective, famous name, or their just as iconic individual monikers. Or, you could just blame the film’s awful incarnation of Dr. Doom, as well as its chaotic finale that just dissolves into a dark, furious mess. Personally, I blame the lack of Stan Lee for all of its shortcomings. That seems like the easiest thing to do.

And with news that Fantastic Four 2 has basically been canned being reported this morning, all we can do now is patiently wait for Fox to reach the same conclusion that we all came to months ago, which is to just sell the franchise to Marvel, who can then do something actually productive with it.

What will be the future of the Fantastic Four franchise, following the dismal reboot that – by several accounts – set the already reeling superhero series back a few additional steps. You are always one hit away from turning things around (right, X-Men: First Class?), which means Marvel’s first family can right the ship, at some point. In order to do so, however, they need to pay attention to the fan feedback, and listen to the outcry that followed this summer’s ill-calculated flop.

This, according to Toby Kebbell, the outstanding actor who played Doctor Doom in Josh Trank’s butchered reboot of Fantastic Four. Kebbell was promoting Warcraft at BlizzCon recently, and was asked by IGN what he thought of the film’s dismal performance. Separated from the release by a few weeks, Kebbell was able to be candid, admitting:

By now, the problems experienced on the set of Fantastic Four and in the post-production process have been well-documented. Some of the big ideas that director Josh Trank had for the movie – particularly those involving Toby Kebbell’s Doctor Doom and the negative zone that gave the villain his powers – ended up on the cutting room floor, and fans noticed that a better version of the movie might have existed in an earlier form. To be fair, they noticed this because Trank told them this on social media.

But Toby Kebbell’s words also point out that recognizing what went wrong, acknowledging it early, and correcting it can go a long way toward fixing a major problem, particularly when it comes to a superhero franchise. At this point, every major comic-book property has had a debilitating setback, be it Superman Returns, Batman & Robin, Spider-Man 3 or the feature-length version of Daredevil. And virtually all of those characters have figured out some way to bounce back. The Fantastic Four can exist in some fashion on screen. The team has far too much potential, and the franchise still hasn’t figured out how to properly use Doctor Doom… who should be the most powerful villain in the MCU. If only he WAS in the MCU.  

Here is Toby Kebbell’s full discussion with IGN, so you can hear his comments in the right context.

For now, Fox has held firm that there will be a Fantastic Four 2 in theaters on June 9, 2017. Will it be a team up with the X-Men? Will it move off of that date, altogether? And if it happens, what changes would you like see implemented to the series that relaunched this past summer?   

There are many things wrong with Josh Trank's Fantastic Four (almost all contained in the last half of the film), but one thing that the production definitely got right was the look of Ben Grimm a.k.a. The Thing. Created with performance capture, the more monstrous member of the titular team looked more authentic than any previous live-action, and also a solid straight adaptation from the comics. It turns out, however, that there were many designs for the character in pre-production that looked considerably different.

Artist Zachary Berger has posted on his personal website a series of concept pieces that he drew for this summer's version of Fantastic Four, and while there are designs that look pretty close to what's featured in the film, there are also some parts that reinterpret the classic look of The Thing. Simpler versions, for example, make him look like how he's drawn in Marvel Comics, but with the added detail of what look like burns (perhaps caused by the experience on Planet Zero).

As for the more radical designs, one can understand why Josh Trank and 20th Century Fox steered away from that direction. Some of Berger's pieces look like they are at least partially inspired by the Hunchback of Notre Dame, as he notably has a giant bulge on his left shoulder causing him to hunch over. Also, one of his eyes is completely covered by a drooping rock eyelid, one of his arms is considerably larger than the other, and his feet are absolutely massive. It's clear that the artist was trying to accentuate the deformed part of The Thing character - which is admittedly a significant part of his bio - though it takes the idea a little too far.

Ultimately, the movie went with a version that looks like a rather direct adaptation of the character from the comics - and while it's too bad that the movie couldn't make better use of him, it's still pretty impressive looking. While it was somewhat controversial, the performance capture approach definitely turned out to be the right way to go. Michael Chicklis' version from the 2005 Fantastic Four doesn't look too bad, but neither it nor the terrible 1994 version made a great argument for not going the CGI route with the reboot:

The difference is The Thing looking like he's covered with a thin layer of rubber that kind of looks like rocks, and actually making him look like he is made out of rock. It's a solid version of the character.

The Blu-ray for Fantastic Four will be released on December 15th - and it will be interesting to see exactly how deep the bonus features go into the troubled making of the movie (my guess is not at all).

When it comes to the on-screen failure of Josh Trank’s Fantastic Four, there aren’t enough fingers in the industry to use to point out the blame. Trank, Fox and the cast all took a beating in the weeks following the film’s release, with many believing that something dubious happened behind the scenes to doom the picture (no pun intended) before it even opened. But Stan Lee has a much simpler reason for the movie’s failure, as he explains below.

Stan "The Man" Lee was interviewed by Larry King on something called Ora.tv when he was asked why Fantastic Four flopped. Lee, an expert on all things Marvel, bluntly explained:

The first part of that statement is a playful joke, a jab at the obvious fact that Stan Lee was omitted from Josh Trank’s superhero origin reboot. Which doesn’t make sense because Lee has filmed cameos for Fox’s X-Men films before, and even showed up in the two Tim Story Fantastic Four movies. Remember this postman?

The second part of Stan Lee’s statement, however, points to a larger problem that Fox and Josh Trank had when assembling this story for an updated Fantastic Four. No one consulted Lee, when he is – without question – the world’s greatest expert on Marvel’s first family. Not that Lee needs to be consulted on superhero movies anymore. Marvel and Fox have had success with and without Lee’s guidance. But FF has proven to be a very tough nut to crack over the years when studios attempt to adapt the source material, and seeing as how Stan Lee created the team with Jack Kirby, you would think that Trank and his screenwriting team would pick up the phone for a short conversation that answered the important question, "Hey, what would Stan Lee do here?"

Stan Lee doesn’t strike me as vindictive, but his next comments to Larry King cut the deepest. He admits in the interview that he hasn’t yet seen the new Fantastic Four, so he really couldn’t comment much further on its successes or failures. Stan Lee hasn’t seen the new Fantastic Four yet?!?! Not that Stan needs to drag his 92-year-old frame to the movie theater for a matinee, but Fox couldn’t hand-deliver a DVD copy of the film to his residence? The man created the team! Without him, there IS no Fantastic Four, thereby, there is no movie. I wonder what Stan Lee would have thought of Trank’s movie. That’s one review I’d pay good money to hear.

After nearly two weeks in theaters, Fantastic Four is a bonafide flop, both critically and commercially. What’s worse is that the film didn’t have to turn out that way. Around the same time that Josh Trank was hired as director, 20th Century Fox recruited Jeremy Slater to write the first draft, but in 2014, Simon Kinberg rewrote most of Slater’s script. Unfortunately, thanks to some new information, it sounds like it might have been a much better film than the final product.

According to Birth.Movies.Death., the first act of Fantastic Four in this script moved similarly to the first act of the theatrical film, but there were still many notable differences. While in the theatrical film it’s obvious that Reed Richards and Ben Grimm are good friends, it’s made explicitly clear in this draft that Ben is Reed’s protector. This is why Reed wanted to bring him on the mission to the Negative Zone (changed to Planet Zero in the film) even though their relationship is on the rocks. Victor von Doom is still involved with the mission, but he is also feeding intel to spies from his home country, Latveria. Rather than be part of the main team, Johnny Storm is instead called in by his sister Sue to help out in the control center while the mission is underway. We also meet Harvey Elder (changed to Harvey Allen in the film), who is experimenting with artificial life, a.k.a. the Moloids, and is later transformed into the Mole Man.

If you thought those differences were drastic enough, when they get to the Negative Zone things get even wilder. When Reed, Ben, and Victor arrive in the parallel world, they discover a long dead alien civilization, and right there to greet them is Galactus. That’s right, Marvel’s world eater, and this time around he was an actual giant man rather than a space cloud. Galactus seemingly kills Victor with a blast of Dark Matter, and while Reed and Ben are able to get back to their module, Galactus hits the quantum gate they came through with Dark Matter as well, thus granting powers to the two people traveling through it and the two people back in the lab.

The film then jumps ahead four years and follows up on what each of the heroes have been up to on their own. Eventually they resolve their differences with one another to join forces against Victor von Doom, who survived Galactus’ attack and was retrieved by the Latverian government after they built their own quantum gate. Aided with new Dark Matter powers, troops armed with futuristic weapons, and Elder’s Moloids, Doom’s endgame (other than to kill Marvel’s First Family) is to build a cannon that he’ll shoot through the quantum gate to destroy Galactus before the world eater can devour Earth. The superhero team is able to stop Doom’s plan with the help of Herbie the robot and the FantastiCar, but they discover that not only is the real Doom still trapped in the Negative Zone (the one they battled was a Doombot), but Galactus is also still coming, thus setting up a sequel or two.

You can browse through the original article to delve into the intricacies of Fantastic Four’s first draft, but needless to say, it sounds like it would have been much more exciting than what moviegoers got, though it would have had to have been trimmed down to not feel overpacked. Still, with Galactus, Mole Man, and other teases, there was more than enough material to build a whole series around. Obviously this story isn’t perfect, but compared to the film we got, it would have been preferable and felt like an actual superhero adventure.

Despite the poor reception of Fantastic Four, Fox is still committed to keeping this iteration of the franchise going, and Fantastic Four 2 is currently slated for release on June 9, 2017.

Fantastic Four should’ve been a much different movie. Thanks to a clash between Josh Trank and Fox — and Josh Trank and Miles Teller, if you believe such things — scenes were cut, reshot and slapped together to form the version we saw on the big screen. Remnants of what could have been litter the initial trailers, but a new report provides a detailed description of what one of the bigger deleted action scenes would’ve looked like.

The most notable scenes from the trailers that are missing from the film center around Jamie Bell’s The Thing airdropping onto an unknown military base and calmly clashing with gunfire. According to Entertainment Weekly’s Anthony Breznican, who interviewed various sources close to production, this was supposed to be one of the film’s big action scenes. Here’s how it should have gone…

In the events following the inter-dimensional trip gone amuck, Reed Richards (Teller) makes his elastic escape from the government facility that leads us to a time jump a year later. The final cut brings us right to Dr. Allen (Tim Blake Nelson) explaining to government officials that Ben Grimm has been executing covert missions, showcasing footage of him clobbering tanks with his new rocky physique. However, his big moment was to take place directly after the time jump and just before this moment.

According to the description, we should have seen terrorists loading weaponry onto trucks at a Chechen rebel base in the middle of the night. We aren’t given any explanation as to why we’re seeing this until a siren blares and the soldiers look up to the sky to see a large object falling from a stealth bomber. The object hits the ground, causing debris to fly every which way.

The soldiers slowly move towards the object after recovering from the impact and see a pile of orange boulders slowly forming arms, legs, a torso and head. The Thing proceeds to move towards the soldiers slowly as he’s pelted with bullets, all of which ricochet right off his rocky exterior. The soldiers eventually realize they can’t harm him and retreat, but it’s all in vein as Navy SEALS hiding in the surrounding forest shoot them down.

The camera shifts to a bird’s-eye view to show American soldiers flooding to secure the base. When they reach The Thing, it looks like they might clash, but then Ben gives them a nod and they clear a path for him to make his exit in a large helicopter.

Depending on which EW source you listen to, the reason this scene was ultimately cut either falls to Trank or the studio: one claims Trank was indecisive, while another claims the scene was a casualty of the cut-down budget. We might never know exactly what happened, but this movie could’ve definitely used such an action-heavy scene.

Just in case you somehow managed to miss this fact, Fantastic Four was one epic-scale trainwreck. And that’s not even regarding the movie, which was fairly brutalized by critics and largely ignored by audiences, we’re talking about the production. There have been all kinds of grievances aired from all sides on this over the past week, but the latest word going around is beyond anything else. According to the newest reports, director Josh Trank and star Miles Teller almost came to blows on set.

According to the latest print issue of Entertainment Weekly (via Comic Book Movie), things were incredibly tense. Trank reportedly had issues forming a coherent vision for the film, producer Simon Kinberg was brought in to help, but Trank wasn’t happy with the changes they made and wrote another draft, which caused delays. Then the studio cut the budget by $30 million, down to $120 million, which Trank didn’t think was enough to fulfill his vision, scenes were removed, and decisions were taken out of his hands. All of this and more bubbled over during production. According to the article:

That does not sound like a good time for anyone. Sure, Trank and Teller didn’t throw down in the middle of production, but it sounds like they came pretty damn close to resorting to fisticuffs. Sometimes you hear stories of movies with troubled productions, or stars and directors who had an antagonistic relationship offscreen that yielded incredible things on screen. Those stories can become the stuff of legend. This, however, does not appear to be one of those times.

And Teller is a one of the actors that Trank really fought to have cast in Fantastic Four. The director went to bat with the studio to have him play Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic. On the other hand, he reportedly did not want Kate Mara to star as Sue Storm. Fox overruled him on that decision, and that did not play out particularly well for the House of Cards star, as Trank vented all of his frustrations and disappointments on her. According to the EW report, his treatment of her "ranged from cold to cruel."

Considering he almost got into a fistfight with her co-star, what the hell does that mean?

Granted, this is all hearsay and comes from unofficial, unconfirmed sources, and at this stage everyone is just playing one huge game of he-said-she-said. Still, something was obviously very not right during the production of Fantastic Four. We’ll probably never know precisely what the issues were, at least not for certain, but there were apparently a lot of people not particularly happy on that set.

The fallout from Fantastic Four continues to spread. Not only did that movie fail to find an audience or impress fans and critics, the behind the scenes troubles even infected other franchises. Director Josh Trank was originally supposed to helm one of the standalone Star Wars Anthology films, though he has since parted ways with the production, leaving that project in limbo. That film is still being developed without Trank, though it’s release has now been pushed back a few years.

With Trank’s departure from the fold, the production has yet to hire a new director. Talking to Entertainment Weekly, Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy reassured fans that they are still moving forward with the picture, though it has now been delayed. She said:

While there are no specific dates given, the article does speculate that it will likely drop in 2020. Though unsubstantiated, this guess does make sense. With the current road map, Lucasfilm and Disney will deliver a new Star Wars movie every year, alternating the numbered Episode films with the standalone Anthology installments. Right now, the slate is Star Wars: The Force Awakens opening December 18, 2015, the Gareth Edwards-directed Star Wars: Rogue One on December 16, 2016, Rian Johnson’s Episode VIII in May of 2017, Chris Miller and Phil Lord’s young Han Solo film in May of 2018, and the not-J.J.-Abrams-directed Episode IX after that in 2019.

None of the details are concrete, but the prevalent rumor is that Josh Trank was working on developing a Boba Fett movie (there have also been reports about how the fan-favorite bounty hunter could fit into all three of the Anthology films, which is something interesting to chew on). We’ve even heard that there was going to be a teaser reel at Star Wars Celebration back in April, but that was nixed with Trank’s departure—again, this is far from official. It also stands to reason that Trank’s film was replaced on the release slate by the Lord/Miller Han Solo picture, so the studio doesn’t have to adjust the schedule, just swap out the films.

According to Kathleen Kennedy, Lucasfilm and the producers, including Simon Kinberg, who worked on Fantastic Four with Trank, want to take their time and make sure they get this film right, whatever it’s about. I don’t know about you, but I can appreciate that; we don’t need bad Star Wars movies.

Some people really make a mess of things the first time around. In the case of Fantastic Four, the reboot blew its wad a bit too early. Not only was it universally bashed by critics for essentially being two dull movies in one, it already wasted the team's chief antagonist, Doctor Doom. He’s the most recognized and, arguably, interesting villain the Fantastic Four ever faced on the page or screen, and his first impression in this new, modernized superhero world was unsatisfying.

So where do the Fantastic Four go from here? Until we hear otherwise, we have to assume Fox is moving ahead with Fantastic Four 2, which is still scheduled for release in 2017 despite dwindling box office numbers for the first one. Who will be, or even could be, the big bad coming to menace the team? SPOILER ALERT: We thought it was going to be Tim Blake Nelson’s character, Harvey, but his Mole Man connections weren’t even touched upon and he eventually fell victim to Doom. So who’s left?

In the event that Fox doesn’t want to rehash what they’ve already done — i.e. bringing back Doom directly after the first movie and bringing in Galactus — here are some ideas for villains that could reinvigorate this franchise.

Namor the Sub-Mariner

Namor isn’t the easiest figure to adapt, mainly because his cinematic rights are property of Universal Pictures. Nevertheless, if Sony could work something out with Disney to bring Spider-Man into the MCU, Fox should think about following suit.

Born in Atlantis, he’s basically Marvel’s version of Aquaman: he has superhuman strength, stamina and reflexes; he can communicate with most forms of marine life; and he can fly, thanks to the winged fins on the back of his ankles. One of the first characters he battled was the original Human Torch — not the Human Torch from the Fantastic Four we all know and love, but Carl Burgos’s original creation. He eventually encountered Johnny Storm in New York City. Namor had amnesia, and his battle with the fiery hero brought back some of his memories. Believing Atlantis had been destroyed, he waged war against NYC and the surface world for years, most often opposed by the Fantastic Four.

Skrulls

Disney’s Marvel universe proved aliens and outer-space sequences could lead to massive success in the superhero genre, and Fox could have their own version by taking the Fantastic Four off-Earth to do battle against the Skrulls. The team were the first to discover the alien empire in the comics, and with the movie seeing the team investigating another dimension what’s to stop them from turning their gaze upwards?

The Skrulls, too, are obsessed with conquering Earth and the race has one massively powerful being spearheading their army. KI’rt, AKA Super Skrull, has the natural shape-shifting capabilities of the Skrull race, but he also has all the powers of the Fantastic Four. Since our heroes have just gotten the hang of their abilities, pitting them against a creature with the same powers could be interesting, but Super Skrull would also make a funny nod to Johnny Storm in Rise of the Silver Surfer.

Frightful Four

This one might be a little fanboy-y for your average reader, but hear me out. The Frightful Four of the comics is a collective of four supervillains whose roster frequently changes, though their mission stays the same — put an end to the Fantastic Four. In the Trank-led cinematic world, the government is trying to crack inter-dimensional travel, but what’s to say nobody else is? If Reed was able to crack the code alongside Victor and Dr. Storm, there could be someone else out there reaching the same success.

With the government using The Thing to attack other military bases in top-secret missions, these enemies of the U.S. might want revenge. But how do they battle something like The Thing and the Fantastic Four? How about send over their own team of four individuals to Planet Zero to gain abilities? See, I’m having a fanboy moment, but it could work.

Annihilus

The Fantastic Four successfully traveled to Planet Zero, and the characters are determined to learn more about it. The obvious choice for the sequel’s villain is to have someone or something come out of Planet Zero that’s not Doctor Doom.

Annihilus is perhaps the most famous Fantastic Four villain to arise from the Negative Zone, which is the basis for the film’s Planet Zero. There was also a rumor flying around at one point suggesting he would be the villain of this current movie, but who knows with all the cuts and reshoots that went down. Annihilus is an all-powerful tyrant of this space, commanding a horde of destruction. Helping matters is last year’s revelation from James Gunn (via Comic Book Movie), who said Annihilus could not be used in Guardians of the Galaxy 2 because Disney’s Marvel Studios doesn’t own the rights to him.

Molecule Man

What do you call a man who has the ability to command matter at the molecular level? One of the most powerful men in the world. Molecule Man, aka Owen Reece, used this power in the comics to lift the Baxter building high above Times Square; create a new conscious being which he called "son"; and to freeze, liquefy and disintegrate objects. Uatua in Secret Wars II #6 refered to this character as "mightier than all other beings in the multiverse."

While we would love to see Doom immediately return to prove that someone can finally get him right, that's already been done; Doom was a villain in both of the original Fantastic Four films. Molecule Man is a character that's not only just as dangerous, but he also reinforces the film's emphasis on science and will test the heroes to their limits. Plus, we've never seen a character with his abilities envisioned on the big screen.

For better or worse, 20th Century Fox is still moving ahead with Fantastic Four 2. That’s what all the latest intel is telling us, and we just have to accept it, no matter how big of a flop the first film was. With the stage already set, it seems as though the sequel will pose its own set of challenges to whomever directs it.

Hitfix recently published an analysis of the entire Fantastical situation, claiming that the sequel was happening. According to their sources, a few details were confirmed: (1) Fantastic Four 2 is still in the works, (2) it may not make its original release date of June 9, 2017, and (3) this is Trank’s world that we’re living in. Drew McWeeny wrote:

So, let’s recap where we are at the end of Fantastic Four -- be wary of SPOILERS.

This film was a bit more "dark and gritty" than the first run of films; our heroes got their abilities from traveling to the Negative Zone Planet Zero, instead of cosmic radiation in space; these characters are a lot younger than they’re classically depicted; they are given their own facility in a remote location to conduct their work; Doctor Doom was zapped through his inter-dimensional gateway; and Tim Blake Nelson’s character, who was pegged as the man to become Mole Man, is gone.

It doesn’t sound like the most appealing project to work on, especially since you already have to adhere to the rules that have been put into place by a different director, but there’s some wiggle room here. As we learned from Trank himself (and other reports with off-the-record sources), there were a lot of scenes cut from the film. We saw a piece of b-roll, for instance, that featured Reed Richards’ infamous Fantasti-car; and his character’s relationship with Sue Storm never came to fruition with a romance for the ages. So there’s at least two points that can make it into the sequel. And, if you really think about it, how much character development was actually going on in this film? Not a whole lot. So there’s also room to stretch these characters to their limits. Pun intended.

Another plus for the future director of the sequel? The cast: Michael B. Jordan, Kate Mara, Miles Teller and Jamie Bell. Unfortunately, Fantastic Four is still in theaters, so we’ll have to endure talk of this first attempt for a little while longer.

If you’ve been paying attention to the world of movies even in the most cursory manner this weekend, you know that Fantastic Four is a sizeable mess. And I don’t even necessarily mean the movie, that’s a whole other thing. There have been back and forth jibes from both the studio and filmmaker, the reviews have been unkind, and audiences stayed away. Fantastic Four didn’t win the box office race on its debut weekend, and right now, it stands to lose an startling amount of money.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, one analyst, Barton Crockett, estimates that when all is said and done, Fantastic Four could lose 20th Century Fox upwards of $60 million. Fox has already been very open about the fact that they were going to have a less-than-stellar year, with estimates having the studio earning less money than they did last year, but their latest superhero adventure is underperforming even those lowered expectations.

Domestically, Fantastic Four earned just under $26 million, with a global take of $59 million. To give this some perspective, the 2005 Fantastic Four opened to totals twice this in the U.S. All of this is against a reported budget of more $120 million. And things aren’t going to get much better. Reviews have been brutal, and the Cinemascore, which measures audience reaction as they leave the theaters, is a C-, which does not bode well for the film’s longevity.

Fantastic Four opened amidst a storm of controversy. There have been rumors and reports circulating for some time about trouble behind the scenes. Director Josh Trank butted heads with the writers and producers—after the release, he tweeted, and then quickly deleted, a message blaming studio interference for the problems—and it was these issues that, whether he quit or got fired, lead to his departure from the standalone Star Wars film he was going to direct.

There were even rumors that X-Men: First Class director Matthew Vaughn was brought in to direct extensive reshoots. All parties roundly denied those rumors, but regardless, watching the movie you can feel the hand of the studio meddling, and the reshoots are readily apparent. Sometimes within a scene, Sue Storm’s hair goes from her natural locks to an obvious wig—actress Kate Mara cut her hair after the production for another movie. If you’ve seen the finished product, you may also have noticed that there are a ton of scenes that figure prominently in the trailers and marketing that are nowhere near the movie. This happens all the time, but rarely are there so many instances.

If you’re interested in digging into some of the problems of Fantastic Four, check out THIS ARTICLE that details some of the most major issues.

Even with this dismal showing out of the gate, Fox is apparently committed to Fantastic Four as a franchise, and plans to move ahead with a sequel. Check out THIS PIECE, where we throw out some ideas that could possibly right the ship moving forward.

I try not to believe the crazy rumors that spill out of the woodworks about production woes. I tried not to believe that Josh Trank was fired from Fantastic Four, and that someone else had to come in at the last minute to finish the movie with scraps. But talk like that is hard to ignore when Trank himself goes on Twitter and essentially blames studio interference for the shoddy product. Trank tweeted "you’ll probably never see" his "fantastic version" of the film, but thanks to some b-roll footage, we’re seeing more deleted scenes come to the life. And one standout is the inclusion of a Fantasti-Car.

The video above shows off some of the behind-the-scenes magic that went into the making of Fantastic Four, but there are also a few scenes that definitely were not in the movie that made it to theaters.

The Fantasti-Car, for one, makes three appearances in this video: the first and last show the vehicle charred to a crisp as Johnny Storm (Michael B. Jordan), Sue Storm (Kate Mara) and Reed Richards (Miles Teller) recover from an attack, and the second is a gag showing Sue jumping into the passenger seat outside what looks like a suburban house.

The Fantasti-Car is a flying car invented by Reed. It made its appearance on the big screen in Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, though this version looks more like a prototype. Whether it even was meant to fly in this film is beyond me, though all these scenes were clearly cut from the film. Perhaps they'll make their way somehow to the inevitable DVD/Blu-ray release.

Another moment that did not make the final cut involves an injured Johnny. In the video, we see Jordan lying on his back with his sister hovering over him in tears. We got a glimpse of this moment in the original trailers, but by the end of the promotional campaign, it got cut. A lot has been said about Fantastic Four, its trials, and the end product. But it's safe to say the film underwent too many changes for comfort.

Fantastic Four is currently out in theaters, with a cast that also includes Jamie Bell, Toby Kebbell, Tim Blake Nelson and Reg E. Cathey. Did you see it yet? What did you think? And did you wish we got a chance to see the actual Fantasti-Car, in action?

With everything that happened behind the scenes during the filming of Fantastic Four we sort of assumed that the story would end once the film came out. Yeah, not so much. If anything the story of the filming of the superhero reboot has only gone more crazy since then.

Reviews started being released last week and they pretty much all said the same thing, this movie is bad. Some gave it the backhanded compliment of being the best Fantastic Four movie that’s yet been produced (without ever saying it was good) but many have not been that nice to it. Then, before the movie was ever released to the general public, embattled director Josh Trank fired off a tweet saying that the version in theaters was not his, and that his version would have been good. We’d already heard the stories about Trank being abusive on the set of the movie. We know the movie had problems at the beginning, not just the end. However, there’s now some more evidence that Fox got very involved in the movie and Trank’s claims may have some validity to them. According to John Campea at Collider:

This information has apparently been corroborated from a second source. If true, this lends some credence to Trank’s claim that this was not his version of the movie. If some major set pieces were removed that were integral to the story it certainly would be difficult to recover with production getting under way. We do know there were major reshoots, the cost of which eventually led to the film losing it’s planned 3D release. It is obvious there was an attempt to make a really inexpensive movie here, which backs up the idea that Fox would kill the big action sequences. And if he wasn’t involved in the final edit? It becomes difficult to lay the final product at his feet if he didn’t have a say in it.

Of course, even if all this is 100% true, it begs the question: who is to say that Trank’s version would have been so much better? It’s looking clearer and clearer that if Trank had made the movie that had been agreed to it would have been different, but that doesn’t guarantee it would have been good.

At the end of the day we know a few things for sure. The movie is bad, Josh Trank is going to have to deal with its terribleness, regardless of how much he is to blame for it, and Fox doesn’t know how to make a good movie with the Fantastic Four, regardless of how much they took over direct control of it.

Josh Trank's Fantastic Four is in the midst of getting absolutely slammed by critics. Ever since the review embargo broke yesterday afternoon, the floodgates have been open, and while there are a few positive pieces floating around, the consensus is extremely negative. According to Josh Trank, however, the blame shouldn't be put on his shoulders, as he claims to have had a much better version of the feature a year ago.

While the message has since been deleted, Josh Trank took to his personal Twitter account this evening and left a post explaining his view on the critical backlash that the Fantastic Four has received. You can see a screenshot of the Tweet below:

Obviously this is a message pretty sparse in terms of detail, but it's not hard to read between the lines. Based on this message, it sounds like Josh Trank was forced to give up creative control of this project about a year ago - after having put together a version of the film he himself was satisfied with - and that the cut that is being shown in theaters is more a product of 20th Century Fox than him. Exactly what was changed is entirely unclear at this point, and it sounds like we will never actually get to see the version of Fantastic Four that the filmmaker actually wanted to release.

Having seen Fantastic Four myself, I can say that it's a disappointment - and there's a certain point in the film where you can really sense some meddling where meddling shouldn't have been done. The first act of the movie really is solid, as it's actually interesting to see the titular four characters come together, crack the code for inter-dimensional travel, and gain powers that look absolutely horrific from the outset. It's unfortunately right after this point that the movie goes completely and shockingly off the rails, as its entirely missing a second and third act, and above all just feels like it's in a mad rush to end itself. It's possible that Josh Trank's version of the film doesn't have these same problems, but we may never know.

Since starting up in earnest a couple years ago, the production of Fantastic Four has constantly found itself in the midst of some kind of controversy or another, and in the aftermath it will be interesting to hear how all of the truth winds up being separated from the fiction.

Whether or not Josh Trank’s Fantastic Four spells doom for the franchise, Doom’s-day is coming. Toby Kebbell of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes portrays Victor von Doom, aka Doctor Doom, in this new story of Marvel’s first family. While he’s largely remained in the shadows for a good portion of the promotional campaign, a new clip from the film has dropped online to showcase some of his deadly abilities. Watch it below.

This is a whole new Doom. The previous film iteration of the character, played by Nip/Tuck’s Julian McMahon, saw the character wield electrical-based powers. However, this new clip, revealed by Comic Book Resources, shows there are a lot more tricks up this guy’s sleeve. His abilities are not spelled out for us, but the footage reveals he has some sort of mental or super-sonic attack that can pop his victim’s brains open like tomatoes. Secondly, he has some sort of force powers, similar in visual style to what we’ve seen from Kate Mara’s Invisible Woman — Sue Storm’s force fields are blue-tinged, while the bullet-deflecting shield around Doom is green.

Then there’s his physical appearance. We know that Victor joins Reed (Miles Teller), Johnny (Michael B. Jordan), Ben (Jamie Bell) and Sue on the inter-dimensional trip that grants them their abilities. Based on the previous trailers, we know they encounter some sort of green substance into which — it appears — Victor falls. When they all return to Earth, he ends up looking like this, a physically scarred and charred man. Of course, he’ll eventually don his signature hood and cape combo when he plans on destroying the world.

"He’s stronger than any of us," we’ve heard exclaimed in the trailers, which tease some of his other abilities. We see him shatter a boulder with his mind and sends Reed flying backwards with an energy blast. His dastardly plans, which are still a bit of a mystery, involve some sort of inter-dimensional vortex with the potential of sucking up large chunks of Earth. "Doom is the ultimate bad guy," Kebbell told Cinema Blend in an interview. Though the film won’t get into his backstory in Latveria, the actor told us Doom’s cursed mother and deceased father are engrained in his character.

We’ll see Doom fully formed when Fantastic Four debuts in theaters this Friday, August 7. Kebbell and the four leads are joined by Reg E. Cathey (Dr. Franklin Storm), Tim Blake Nelson and (pre-Mole Man, Dr. Allen). Fantastic Four 2 is already slated for release on June 9, 2017, though it’s unclear where Fox might take this property. Rumor has it that X-Men director Bryan Singer might go over to helm the FF sequel in the hopes of crossing over both of these properties. Singer recently confirmed discussions on the matter, and now we’re waiting to see how it all turns out.

We are only two days away from Josh Trank's Fantastic Four reboot dropping into theaters. So now's a good time to remind ourselves of just why we're watching yet another version of the origin story leading to their team up. If you can stomach it, relive the horror of the previous two films below.

Thanks to the brave souls at Screen Junkies, we now have an Honest Trailer for not just the 2005 variant of the origin, but also its 2007 sequel of suckitude, Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer. A pair of films so bad, Fox doesn't want you to see them before the new version hits theaters, the Fantastic Four films are artifacts of a different era of superhero movies. From a time when Marvel Comics threw caution (and the rights to their most profitable super heroes) to the wind, Tim Story was given the unenviable task of creating a movie that took the weirdest superpowers you could think of, and make them believable.

Granted, the new Josh Trank version of Fantastic Four still had its fair share of "controversial" elements, like allegedly turning Doctor Doom into a hacker or casting Michael B. Jordan as The Human Torch. But those are nothing compared to turning Galactus into a world-eating cloud, or the story of Reed Richards, Sue and Johnny Storm, and Ben Grimm into a subpar action comedy. No matter what Josh Trank does in Fox's latest bid to keep another Marvel property "out of Marvel's hands," at the very least it won't include a product placement orgy outside of the X-Games.

Despite all of the problems that Fantastic Four's 2005 film had, there are some things that we can actually give the films credit for. For instance, without Tim Story's Fantastic Four, the thought might have never crossed Joe Johnston and his crew's minds to cast Chris Evans as Captain America. Also, shit on the film as you may, Michael Chiklis was still a pretty awesome Ben "The Thing" Grimm; as he nailed not only the physique, but also the delivery.

So cheer up! Fox is determined not to make the same mistakes as they've previously made, with their gritty reboot of Fantastic Four. If we're lucky, the worst thing that'll happen is they'll make all new and more interesting mistakes this time! And should that day come, Screen Junkies already has the quote you'll be plastering on Photoshopped posters you'll submit to Imgur.

Fantastic Four hopes that fourth time's a charm, as it flies into theaters on Thursday night. And just remember, no matter what happens with the movie, there will at least be an awesome Deadpool trailer hitting our eyes in theaters right before it!

There has been a great deal of talk about the behind the scenes troubles of Fantastic Four. We’ve heard things like the cast hasn’t actually even seen the finished movie yet, and reports that director Josh Trank’s clashes with writer/producer Simon Kinberg may have even lead to his leaving the Star Wars spinoff he was supposed to direct. With the release just a few days away, Kinberg set about trying to ease concerns and defend the film.

Talking to EW, Kinberg admits that there were problems on the set and that the entire process was tricky. He cautions, however, that just because there were issues, doesn’t mean the movie is bad, and he has hopes for the future of the franchise. He said:

The first reaction to this statement is that it appears Kinberg is doing damage control for a very expensive movie. Most of the stories circulating around the production were not particularly great, including rumors that they brought in X-Men: First Class Matthew Vaughn to do reshoots, rumors that were quickly denied by all involved. Obviously, those have to be taken with a grain of salt—good stories of happy times and hand holding rarely leak out—but they caused concern.

To Kinberg’s point, there are countless movies out there, many of them classics, which had notoriously troubled productions. Sometimes actors, directors, writers, grips, and what have you just don’t get along and had a miserable time, but the movie turned out awesome. We’re hoping that’s the case with Fantastic Four.

The fact that Fox didn’t start screening the movie until very recently (in many parts of the country it doesn’t screen for press until Wednesday, the night before early Thursday shows, and it just isn’t screening some places) doesn’t bode well. At this point, consensus is split amongst those who have seen the film. Some have praised its darker, grittier take on the superhero source material while others are not so on board. Most of us will have to wait until this weekend to see for ourselves.

Despite their reported conflict, Kinberg still seems to support Josh Trank (you didn’t really expect him to publicly trash the director, did you?). He said:

Sure, some of this does come across a little backhanded, putting the bulk of the weight on Trank’s shoulders, good or bad. However, even without the rumors of trouble, as the director of a $122 million movie, he would have borne the most of that regardless.

Is Fantastic Four as good as we all hope? Is it as terrible as we fear? We don’t know, but we’ll all find out when it opens this Friday, August 7.

Last month, director, Josh Trank did something which legions of fans and probably loads of filmmakers could not possibly ever conceive doing: he walked away from Star Wars. Well, one of the planned spinoff films, anyway. The story quickly snowballed into an assortment of unseemly rumors surrounding his exit. Now, Trank is speaking out, looking to set the record straight, and the reality is that he needs some time away from extreme public scrutiny.

In an interview with The LA Times Trank finally goes on record about the circumstances of his perplexing exit from the Star Wars spinoff project. Vehemently denying rumors such as those claiming he behaved erratically during the shoot of his upcoming effort, Fantastic Four, or supposed issues with writer/producer, Simon Kinberg, Trank cites more personal reasons. According to Trank:

Trank claims to have had a great working relationship with Lucasfilm, and that his friendship with Simon Kinberg only grew during the filmmaking process for Fantastic Four, as well as his never-realized run helming the Star Wars spinoff. In fact, his explanation seems to fall in line with the reason given in the initial public statement announcing his exit, which cited Trank’s desire to pursue "original creative opportunities." We can probably venture that Trank, still a relatively young (31 year-old) director with not too many projects garnered on his CV, may be experiencing a bit of burnout relating to the meticulous, sometimes asinine expectations that are required when tackling established popular franchises.

Josh Trank made quite a statement in 2012 with his feature film debut in the innovatively unorthodox low-budget "kids with superpowers" type film Chronicle. Powered mostly by buzz, the film garnered $126.6 million globally on a $12 million budget investment. Trank quickly found his directorial dance card full of offers such as Fox’s upcoming reboot of Fantastic Four, and the ultimate dream of every movie geek, a chance to direct a Star Wars film. Trank rode that wave for a few years, but it appears that behind the scenes, he was being pushed to his limit.

As the process would unfold, it seems that his limited experience with a significantly larger collaborative process would start to catch up to his meteoric success. He may have been unprepared for the level of studio/producer/writer micromanagement that tends to occur with giant studio films. In the case of Fantastic Four, Trank would learn about a more scathing kind of scrutiny from the public after altering aspects of the mythology (notably Johnny Storm/Human Torch’s ethnicity), as well as generalized criticism over the apparent stylistic choices showcased in the trailers.

Understandably, the pressure was becoming problematic and, as he stated, "not healthy." After having wrapped Fantastic Four, Trank is still in the midst of enduring all the enquiry, both public and private over the project even before it hits theaters in August. Thus, walking into the franchise of all franchises with Star Wars, one can imagine that the pressures and the scrutiny will only increase exponentially. After having been attached to the project for a year, perhaps, Trank saw that this prospective dream job had become a poisoned gift.

Details about the project to which Trank was formerly attached are still a mystery. However, the general belief is that it will be a gritty, space-western type film taking place amidst the galaxy’s seedy underbelly – specifically focusing on bounty hunter, Boba Fett and smuggler-turned Rebel hero, Han Solo. Tellingly, more experienced names like Iron Man helmer Jon Favreau and X-Men: First Class and Kingsman director Matthew Vaughn are currently floating in the rumor ether for Trank’s old job.

At this stage we don’t know who will wind up taking the job, but director Gareth Edwards will be kicking off the spinoff assortment of Star Wars titles with Star Wars Anthology: Rogue One on December 16, 2016. Of course, that one comes about a year after Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which will hit on December 18 of this year.

It hasn’t taken much to send diehard Fantastic Four fans into a hissy fit over Josh Trank’s impending reboot. Even though all seemed to be going relatively well over the last few months ahead of its release in August, fans have now found something new to get furious over in the color of The Thing’s eyes. I do believe that at this point children of the internet all across the world usually drop a WTF.

But do Fantastic Four fans have a point? Well, let’s check out the evidence out for ourselves. One eagle-eyed Reddit user is the reason for this entire kerfuffle. Yuloforce originally noticed that Josh Trank and the powers that be over at Fantastic Four altered The Thing’s retinas. But rather than keeping that information to himself and immediately moving on with his life, yuloforce decided to share the outcry with others online. You can check out the close-up image from a poster cited below.

As you can imagine, fans didn’t take the news that The Thing’s eyes are now brown rather than blue well. Their complaint is that Ben Grimm often referes to himself as "the ever-lovin’, blue-eyed Thing." However, it should also be noted that, according to Comic Book.com, The Thing’s eyes did appear to be blue in the earlier teaser, so this could just be a small mistake from the person who created the latest batch of Fantastic Four posters.

That didn’t stop posts almost instantly turning up suggesting that this is just the latest in a number of creative decisions that have been made by those in control of the reboot that proves Fantastic Four will be an utter humiliation.

For those of you keeping score this is the umpteenth complaint that has come Fantastic Four’s way ever since Josh Trank took over the series. Even though Trank is working from a script from Simon Kinberg, who most recently worked wonders on X-Men: Days Of Future Past, and cited the likes of David Cronenberg, Steven Spielberg, and Tim Burton as influences on his blockbuster, Fantastic Four aficionados were more concerned with the colour of Michael B. Jordan’s skin, the suggestion that the outfits would be changed, and several other aesthetic alterations, which now include The Thing’s eyes, and have been predicting that the reboot would be a failure for quite some time.

However, after the first trailer for the Fantastic Four debuted earlier this year to a positive response, fan complaints began to drift into silence, as they quickly came to the conclusion that the Chronicle director actually knew what he was doing. We’ll see if that’s actually the case when Fantastic Four is released on August 7, 2015.

So much of the marketing materials for Josh Trank’s upcoming Fantastic Four have focused on the introduction of the team members. To date, we haven’t seen much of their powers. CGI delays have been the assumed reason, but now that we are getting closer to the film’s release, clips like this show off what the Fantastic Four are able to do.

This footage, courtesy of a MovieTickets promo, places an emphasis on Michael B. Jordan’s take on The Human Torch – meaning that we finally get a full glance of Johnny Storm flaming on. He doesn’t shout “Flame On!” in the clip (a missed opportunity to please the fanboys), but it’s a nice, extended glimpse at the effects being used to cover this kid’s body in fire. It also gives us a great look at the suit that Storm will wear, a black leotard with red panels that appear to contain his flames, or control them when they take over 100% of his body.

Assuming that this promo reel uses footage from Josh Trank’s actual Fantastic Four film, this scene takes place after the team has returned from the N-Zone, an interdimensional realm where Johnny, Reed Richards (Miles Teller), Sue Storm (Kate Mara) and Ben Grimm (Jamie Bell) are saddled with powers that help turn them in to The Fantastic Four. The MovieTickets reel goes in to the abilities of each Fantastic Four member, but they use footage that we previously saw in earlier trailers. Only the Torch stuff is new, and worth discussing.

What else do we know about Fantastic Four? At this point, it’s clear that it’s going to be an origin story for Marvel’s First Family. Dr. Franklin Storm (Reg E. Cathey) will be the man responsible for recruiting a team to enter the N-Zone, believing that the brilliant Reed Richards (Teller) is the secret to completing years of unfinished research on behalf of the government. On the expedition, all four members of the team will be affected by cosmic rays, turning them into superheroes.

The wild card in Fantastic Four is the cast member we really haven’t seen yet: Tobey Kebbell’s Victor Domashev. That trailer above finally reveals that Domashev – the man who will become Doom – enters the N-Zone with the team. But just how powerful he becomes remains to be seen.

Fantastic Four actually has a prime late-summer release date. Set for August 7, it will contend with Marvel’s Ant-Man, but other films have capitalized on early August dates, so there’s hope. Look for it on August 7, when the team finally assembles.

In the wake of director Josh Trank leaving the second standalone Star Wars anthology film, we learned that the plot revolves around fan favorite bounty hunter Boba Fett, and is described as an origin story. One of the most intriguing elements about the character has always been his mystery, and his general lack of screen time and dialogue only enhanced this. George Lucas, however, pulled back the curtain a bit in the prequels, shedding light on some of his backstory (now we know what he looks like under that badass mask).

This move took some of the luster off of Boba Fett, making him an actual character rather than a kind of harrowing, monolithic evil (then again, so did that scream as he falls into the Sarlacc pit). He’ll have to be a real character to carry an entire movie—it’s hard to have a movie without one—and this is also going to indelibly alter how we look at him throughout the rest of the Star Wars saga. Whoever winds up in the director’s chair, they’re going to have to strike a balance of what drew people to the character in the first place, while portraying him as an actual person. With all of this in mind, and since this is happening whether we like it or not, we’ve put together a list of things we want from a standalone Boba Fett movie.

Don't Spend Too Much Time On His Childhood

We know this is an "origin story," but between Attack of the Clones and the subsequent Clone Wars animated series, his childhood has already been covered in enough depth that any more will likely be overkill. We know he’s the non-modified spawn of Jango Fett, who formed the genetic basis for the Republic’s manufactured Clone Army. He’s a sadistic little bastard—surprise, surprise—but what’s we want to see is more of how becomes the Boba Fett we meet in The Empire Strikes Back, the grim, sparse, damn near mute badass that’s like a sci-fi version of a stoic western character. A traumatic childhood that leads a character down a dark path has been done to death in movies, and we’ve all already seen it in this particular case, so if this has to happen, let’s move onto a time we haven’t already seen.

Show Him Get Into Bounty Hunting

Bounty hunting, no matter what galaxy or reality you inhabit, is inherently a dramatic profession, one that comes with a ton of built-in hazards to contend with. It also seems like a job that you wind up in rather than one you actively pursue (do lots of people just start off thinking, "I should get into bounty hunting?"), and there are bound to be stories there. Boba Fett picked some of it up from dear old dad, and in Clone Wars we see him in the early stages of taking up the trade, but as with any potentially hazardous occupation, there is going to be a lot to learn. Watching him go through the paces, learning the ins and outs, the dos and don’ts, could be very illuminating on both a story and character level. We know he has the temperament for bounty hunting, but does he have an aptitude? Is he a natural, or is it something he struggles with?

Why He Customizes His Armor

After Jango Fett’s death, one of the only things young Boba Fett has is his armor, which becomes an iconic part of the bounty hunter’s appearance. But his wardrobe changes over time. At one point in the Expanded Universe it’s resized by a couple of Jabba the Hutt’s employees, and eventually he repaints it, covering up his father’s blue and adding the green scheme that is so identified with the character. Exploring this choice adds some layers and depth to his characterization. For all intents and purposes, Boba, a clone, is Jango, so why make the change? This says a lot about him, the relationship he developed with his father, how he changes after his death, and sets him apart from the rest of the mindless clones that share his DNA. This doesn’t have to be a big part of the movie, and probably shouldn’t be, but, if the story covers any sizeable span of time, showing the evolution of his armor brings in a different, potentially interesting dimension.

There Has To Be A Strong Antagonist

You don’t get to be a notorious intergalactic bounty hunter by being a nice guy and without making enemies, and someone needs to challenge him. Over the course of his career, we know that Boba Fett has a close working relationship with Jabba the Hutt, he comes into contact with Darth Vader, and occasionally teams up with other bounty hunters (in the comics, he actually marries one named Sintas Vel, though a love story would likely feel forced and weird). But what’s the main conflict going to be? Just tracing his life from one event to the next would make this feel like a character biography on Wikipedia, there has to be more, some antagonist, and one worthy of facing off with one of the most popular characters in Star Wars. This raises a bigger question about this movie: is this actually an origin story, one that follows him over a wide swath of time, or does it show one single adventure in the life of Boba Fett?

Show Him Hunt Jedi

This one really depends on the timeframe of the story. Boba Fett’s antagonism towards the Jedi is well known. One of them, Mace Windu, did kill his father, and it would be cool to see him hunting down the lightsaber wielders. In the Expanded Universe, he ultimately, thought unsuccessfully, goes after Mace Windu, so it’s plausible that he could look for vengeance through other avenues. This won’t really work if the story is set in the original trilogy era, as there aren’t all that many Jedi left to hunt, and most of those are in hiding. However, it appears this is going to be set earlier, and if this takes place around when Order 66 comes down, Boba Fett could have a field day helping to hunt the Jedi to near extinction. Hell, perhaps he’s so driven by revenge that he goes after Darkside Jedi as well if that’s all he can get his hands on, he is, after all, not a guy prone to choosing sides.

Just last night, the second of the standalone Star Wars "anthology" films had a major setback when its director Josh Trank exited the project. The director gave no concrete reasoning behind his seemingly spontaneous departure, and only spoke kind words and thanks for the opportunity he had. But the studio is now in search for another filmmaker, and sources report that it was actually Disney who made the final cut for multiple reasons.

Young director, Josh Trank came into the scene with his low-budget yet highly innovative superhero film, Chronicle, just a few years ago. His work on the film earned him the recognition to helm the upcoming Fantastic Four reboot. But, as it turns out, his problems on set with 20th Century Fox’s upcoming comic book flick, have turned Lucasfilm off from the director. According to The Hollywood Reporter’s sources, Lucasfilms executives heard of the Trank’s unusual conduct during the making of Fantastic Four and it raised alarms. They ultimately decided that they could not trust him with the Star Wars standalone film.

In regards to Fantastic Four, a spokesperson at Fox told THR that while they are "very happy with the movie and we can’t wait for audiences to see it" they acknowledge that "there were definitely some bumps in the road. Insiders described Trank’s behavior on set as "erratic" and at time "very isolated" with little or no clear direction.

A few of the specific problems included up to $100,000 worth of damages to a rented house in New Orleans where Trank left his several small dogs. His indecisive and lack of communication forced producers Simon Kinberg and Hutch Parker to step in while he was directing to pull the film together. Three months away from opening, Fantastic Four had to do re-shoots, which was extremely complicated since stars of the film such as Miles Teller, Michael B. Jordan and Kate Mara had obligations to other films. This also forced Parker and Kinberg to take time away from X-Men: Apocalypse. So, Kinberg, who is onboard to produce the second Star Wars standalone apparently communicated these problems with Trank to the team at LucasFilm, and the more they heard, the less confident they became in the director.

Trank is 31 years old, fairly young to be helming major movies such as Fantastic Four and Star Wars. An insider commented on Trank’s previous work to THR saying that there was no question of talent, and Chronicle shows that, but Trank seemed "like one of these kids who comes to the NBA with all the talent and none of the character-based skills to handle it. There’s equipment he doesn’t yet have."

Fans knew something was off though, especially back in April when the director didn’t show up to his scheduled appearance at Star Wars Celebration in Anaheim. Trank claimed he was very ill in a Tweet, but sources say the studio asked him not to attend while they made their final decision on the director’s involvement. And the decision was made.

While this definitely puts a damper on Trank’s career, it’s probably not the last we’ll hear from him. Like the above insider claimed, Trank is definitely a talent, he just doesn’t have all the equipment to handle these grand projects quite yet. More news on Disney’s search for a new director is sure to come in the following weeks as the project has no time to waste.

UPDATE: According to sources, which they claim are close to the situation, Variety reports that Josh Trank left the upcoming Star Wars spinoff due to the ubiquitous "creative differences." Reportedly, Trank and screenwriter Simon Kinberg weren't too keen to work together again after they butted heads numerous times filming Fantastic Four.

ORIGINAL POST: Since that Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer dropped a few weeks back, there hasn’t been all that much Star Wars news to talk about, but now we have some, and it isn’t great for the franchise. Josh Trank, who was on board to direct the second of the standalone "anthology" films, has exited the project.

At the moment there is no concrete reason known for the departure, but in a statement released earlier today on StarWars.com, the director said:

Trank burst onto the scene with his innovative, low-budget superhero film Chronicle back in 2012. That project was enough to put him on Hollywood’s radar in a big way, as he was subsequently tapped to helm the upcoming Fantastic Four for 20th Century Fox, though there have been concerns over his performance on that film.

Shortly after it was announced that Godzilla director Gareth Edwards would helm the first of the standalone Star Wars movies, Rogue One, Trank was hired to develop and lead the second, as yet untitled installment. That film isn’t scheduled to hit theaters until 2018, so there is still plenty of time to find a replacement—hell, the first one hasn’t even started shooting yet—but many fans were interested to see what Trank could do working in that far, far away galaxy. Now that he has departed, we will have to see what impact this has on that film and its development.

Trank didn’t show up at Star Was Celebration in Anaheim, pulling out at the last minute with what he said was an illness (he said it was the worst flu he's ever had), which prompted all kinds of rampant speculation and rumors that he had left the film. While that was all just internet scuttlebutt, and whether or not he knew about this at the time, those rumors have apparently come to pass. He did tweet an apology for his absence, which included the line, "Here’s to next year," which doesn’t sound like someone leaving a movie, though the Fantastic Four trailer did drop online shortly after.

Since director Josh Trank and his cast of rising, young talent finished principal photography on the Fantastic Four reboot, we haven’t seen much beyond two trailers. Fans have already overanalyzed this move as a sign of a poor final product. It’s not their fault. They’ve been burned before... twice! But Simon Kinberg, who produced and worked on the screenplay for the film, assures us that there’s a better reason why the team has been keeping its secrets close to the vest.

During an interview with HitFix, Kinberg explained that he, Trank and Fox want to showcase the best possible product, which explains the lack of footage at last year’s Comic-Con and the delayed teaser trailer release.

It’s apparent from the Fantastic Four trailers that a lot of visual effects work is going into this film. For one, Jamie Bell’s transformation into The Thing was done through motion capture, as opposed to the rubbery suit Michael Chiklis wore in the 2005 version and its sequel. Though, all the main cast members undergo extensive VFX-enhanced transformations. Kimberg specifically noted Reed Richards (Miles Teller), aka Mr. Fantastic, given the recent confusion over the description of his powers on the official website. He called the character’s stretching abilities as one of "the harder visual effects to render in a way that feels real and visceral and physical." Make no mistake, though. He will be stretching.

?Tim Story’s rendition of Marvel’s first family didn’t exactly inspire confidence in the property’s fan base, but everything we’ve seen so far from Trank’s vision has been mind-blowing. The filmmaker caught Hollywood’s attention with his dark and gritty superheroes-meet-found-footage film, Chronicle, and studios, such as Lucasfilm and Fox, are wanting to latch onto his unique sensibilities. For Fantastic Four, he’s taking a drastic departure from the team’s classical origin story. Instead of becoming exposed to cosmic radiation in space, Reed Richards (Teller), Sue Storm (Kate Mara), Johnny Storm (Michael B. Jordan), Ben Grimm (Jamie Bell) and Victor Domashev (Tobey Kebbell) travel to an alternate dimension that alters their physical forms.

Fantastic Four opens in theaters on August 7.

We’ve been thinking of Josh Trank’s upcoming Fantastic Four as a superhero movie. It is, after all, based on a popular Marvel comic and features a heroic team of individuals with superpowers and costumes. Seems to fit the bill. But according to the director, the film may be much creepier than you expect.

EW caught up with Trank, who made his name with 2012’s low-budget, superpowered Chronicle, and he talked about focusing on the terrifying nature of the powers acquired by Reed Richards (Miles Teller), Sue Storm (Kate Mara), Johnny Storm (Michael B. Jordan), and Ben Grimm (Jamie Bell). He said:

X-Men: Days Of Future Past writer/producer Simon Kinberg handled the script, and he and Trank had two goals in making this movie. They wanted it to be a coming-of-age story, where the characters become the masters of their own fate, and the other thing was they want it to watch more like a horror movie than your average comic book adaptation.

What we’ve seen so far from the movie definitely looks eerie way grittier than the previous films from 2005 and 2007. That was very much the intention, as Trank calls his film "Dark Amblin," saying it’s like Steven Spielberg meets Tim Burton. That’s a fantastic mix from where we stand, and sounds like a combination of great action and adventure with a brooding, sinister sensibility. Let’s just hope it doesn’t crib too much from the Dark Knight approach.

Superpowers almost always come with one drawback or another. Hulk may have incredible strength and power, but he’s also an uncontrollable green rage monster; Captain American may be strong and fast, but it’s also lead to him being a man out of time and he’s isolated from the world around him; Daredevil has heightened senses, but can’t see; and the list goes on.

If viewed from the right perspective, it’s easy to think of them as a curse, a burden, and it sounds like Fantastic Four is going to focus more on that side of things. You have to imagine that turning to stone, your bones stretching and bending, and you skin bursting into flames doesn’t feel particularly pleasant. Kate Mara compares gaining their powers to a car crash, a traumatic experience that leaves lingering effects and changes you from that day forward.

This latest version of Fantastic Four is another origin story. During an experimental interdimensional journey, the team is "infected"—how that plays out remains to be seen—and transformed. Reed becomes Mr. Fantastic, Sue the Invisible Woman, Johnny the Human Torch, and Ben the Thing. Victor Domashev (Toby Kebbell), another member of their team, is also turned into a new version of Dr. Doom.

We can see just how dark Fantastic Four is for ourselves when it hits theaters August 7.