We have heard all sorts of things about Josh Trank‘s THE FANTASTIC FOUR ranging from a retooled origin story to a much darker take on the superhero squad. Whether it be a lack of humor in the film or the casting of Michael B. Jordan as Johnny Storm, there are a lot of negative feelings floating around this project. So, why don’t we add another.
Miles Teller, slated to play Reed Richards in the reboot, has shared a new tidbit about THE FANTASTIC FOUR and the direction the film is going in. I have a feeling a lot of you aren’t going to like this, but here is what he had to say to IGN about the movie:
When I read the script, I didn’t feel like I was reading this larger-than-life, incredible supehero tale. These are all very human people that end up having to become I guess what is known as the Fantastic Four. So for me it was just a really good story and gives me an opportunity to play something different from my own skin. It’s a proper character and that’s my favorite stuff to do.”
So, a grounded approach to a team that includes a stretchy guy, a rock man, a firestarter, and an invisible woman? This sounds remarkably similar to when Marc Webb and Sony decided that THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN would be set in a more “realistic” world akin to Christopher Nolan‘s THE DARK KNIGHT. Marc Webb himself said he is now embracing the spectacle with this year’s sequel, so why are they going to try the same thing with what could be the most unrealistic superheroes in Marvel’s canon?
The reason Nolan was able to make a realistic Batman trilogy is because the character has no superpowers. There are almost no characters that such an approach could work with. James Mangold‘s THE WOLVERINE got pretty close but never sacrificed the nature of the character to make the story more realistic. Hopefully in this case grounded is just another word for layered.
THE FANTASTIC FOUR starring Miles Teller, Michael B. Jordan, Kate Mara, and Jamie Bell opens on June 19, 2015.