So, here we are on opening day for Fantastic Four, and it would appear the film is already stillborn, sank by some of the worst reviews ever received by a superhero film. I did not think it was a good movie, though I wouldn't quite say it was 8% on Rotten Tomatoes bad, Catwoman bad. Still, regardless of my or anyone else's opinion, it can't be denied that the official story of Fantastic Four is that it's an utter failure, so now the postmortem begins, and the question becomes, "Who is to blame for this?" I've seen a lot of speculation on that topic, so I thought I'd interject with some of my own thoughts.
I feel like the cast were largely vindicated. For the most part, they seemed to do the best they could with the shoddy material they were given, and by the end I was left believing that this cast could totally have pulled off being the Fantastic Four and Doom in a better film. And for all the borderline-racist (and often more than just borderline) rhetoric against Michael B. Jordan - not here so much, thankfully, mainly elsewhere - I've not seen a single review single out him being black as any reason for the film's failure.
The next step up in the pyramid is Josh Trank. And while I pointed out that this is very much a film of two halves, a promising opening that falls apart from "One Year Later" onwards, I still don't believe that Trank would have made a masterpiece if Fox hadn't stepped in and ruined everything. The ending might feel like it was stage-managed by soulless corporate execs, and them stepping in probably didn't help matters and likely made things worse, but the fact that they felt they had to step in suggests there was something deeply wrong, and there are hints of that running through even the stronger parts of the film. While many were hand-wringing over the casting or the costumes, a much bigger warning sign of impending disaster for me was reports of Josh Trank's erratic, unprofessional behaviour on-set, and his subsequent firing from his Star Wars gig. That paired with his poor attitude online suggested an egotistical diva director without the talent or clout to back it up. Furthermore, him denouncing the film just before its release is a dick move. If you genuinely have integrity and feel the film being released isn't your film, you Alan Smithee yourself and take your name off it, or better yet, have a level-headed discussion with the producer that you have different visions and walk off amicably before the film gets made, like Edgar Wright did. You don't cling on until the bad reviews come in THEN run from the blame, leaving your actors and the studio holding the bag. He made it, he kept his name on it, and on a film like this, managing and working around studio interference is part of the job. He has to own at least part of the blame. Having said that, though, perhaps he isn't due the lion's share, as on a project like this, I imagine very few directors could have salvaged anything worthwhile out of this.
Because ultimately, the true blame lies at the feet not of the cast or the director, but at Fox, because from its very inception, this project was a cynical rights grab and a rush-job, being made for all the wrong reasons. It wasn't being made because they had a good story to tell, or they thought they had a marketable project, or they believed in the property. It was made because the rights were due to return to Marvel and they had to excrete SOMETHING out. And the fact that $100+ million can be splurged on what is the cinematic equivalent of a shrug and a "Meh, that'll do" is pretty damn shocking, and an indictment of the worst of film blockbuster culture and Hollywood excess. Any film working from these motivations as a starting point is at the very least faced with an extreme uphill struggle, and at worst utterly doomed from the outset.
