Marvel's
"First Family" has not had much luck on the silver screen,
sure there was was the unreleased low budget Roger Corman film
and the two modestly successful mid-2000s movies, which starred
Chris Evans as Johnny Storm (The Human Torch), who would go on
to play another Marvel hero, Captain America in Marvel
Studios/Disney's more successful Marvel Cinematic Universe
films.
Marvel's beloved characters (dozens of them) were making the leap
from the funny books to the big screen with a little help from the
"House of Mouse", but 20th Century Fox still had the rights
to the very large X-Men franchise (including "solo" movies focusing on individual characters who appear within the franchise, such as Wolverine, Gambit, and Deadpool) and The Fantastic Four. Around the
time when Disney's purchase of Marvel was announced, Fox announced
they were rebooting the FF, this project lay in development hell
for several years until August 2015, when it was unleashed to the
movie-going public, only to become the worst-rated superhero movie of all time, beating out Halle Berry's disastrous Catwoman.
The
problems ranged from minor, such as casting Michael B. Jordan
(who's black) as Johnny Storm (who's white) and Dr. Doom's design
and appearance to even bigger ones, like no chemistry between the
leads, bad screenwriting, plot holes and a story that goes nowhere.
Many
fingers began pointing the blame at the behavior of director Josh
Trank and executive meddling from top execs at Fox, who demanded
cuts and re-shoots. The cuts and re-shoots turned the film into a
cobbled mess to which Trank explained that a year ago he had a made a
great movie, but that movie would never be seen by anyone. Fox
executives went on to blame Trank, whose behavior on the set included
heavy drug use and destroying a rental home (he blamed the latter on
his dogs!).
Among the things that didn't make the final cut were many action sequences, appearences by Galactus and Herbie the Robot and a possible crossover with the X-Men.
Upon viewing, you sort of feel sorry for the cast and crew, they are trying to do the best, but it just doesn't work. The negative reviews and behind the scenes drama became more talked about than the actual movie.
A
sequel was planned and there was even a hook for one at the end of the movie, but
due to the poor box-office returns of this film and its infamous reputation. It looks like Mr.
Fantastic, The Invisible Woman, The Thing, and The Human Torch,
won't be back on the big screen anytime soon!