Last month director Josh Trank and screenwriter/producer Simon Kinberg shared a few new details on the THE FANTASTIC FOUR, and one of the things that raised a few eyebrows was Trank's comment about taking a "Cronenberg-ian" approach to the comic book movie. Trank specifically mentioned that David Cronenberg's THE FLY and SCANNERS were big influences on the look of the film, and he also said he is a huge fan of the director.
David Cronenberg has been out promoting his latest movie MAPS TO THE STARS, and earlier today Collider asked Cronenberg to share his thoughts on Josh Trank drawing inspiration from his films for THE FANTASTIC FOUR.
It’s fine. Once you’ve contributed your voice to the cinematic conversation, it’s out there and it’s up for grabs, absolutely. So I don’t complain. In fact, I take it as a compliment.
Cronenberg knows THE FANTASTIC FOUR isn't the first movie inspired by his work, and he goes on to say Ridley Scott's ALIEN ripped off a few things from his parasite film SHIVERS.
As far back as Alien, for example, which totally ripped off things from my movie Shivers – Shivers featured a parasite that lives in your body, bursts out of your chests, jumps onto your face, and jumps down your mouth, and suddenly you see this in a studio film, which was hugely successful, Alien. The writer of the script, Dan O’Bannon, had seen Shivers, we know that he had seen my movie and, shall we say, appropriated it. So this is not new stuff for me.
The director also applauded Josh Trank for admitting his film will be Cronenberg-esque.
When you come up with something original and it really strikes a chord in people, it’s going to imitated, it’s going to be appropriated, and it’s actually kind of nice when someone just flat out admits it. That’s actually pretty good. Not everybody does.
I have a feeling THE FANTASTIC FOUR is going to be very polarizing movie among both critics and fans of the comic books. I'm still not sure what to expect from the reboot, and I have no clue how it will perform at the box office, however I am very eager to check out Josh Trank's new film.
David Cronenberg's MAPS TO THE STARS (you can read Chris Bumbray's review here) will be released in theaters, On Demand and on iTunes February 27, 2015, and THE FANTASTIC FOUR opens on August 7, 2015.