Fant4stic "It's Clobberin' Time!" - The Ben "Thing" Grimm Thread

[Smashlilman]

I agree. I don't want to be seeing Ben constantly changing back and forth between his human form and his Thing form, and spending most of the time in his human form just to save on costs. Unlike Hulk, who can be Banner and then Hulk out (and part of the fun is seeing him Hulk out), Ben is always the Thing unless he gets cured.

Having a CG Thing the whole time throughout the film will eat into the budget. Fox are bound to then either limit his screentime as the Thing to a few short appearances, or have Johnny, Reed and Sue not using their powers a whole lot.

I think they need to make a practical suit, but it has to look a whole lot better than the previous FF movies. They should look at the Marvel Legends figures for reference on how his face should look. Even the rocks on some of these look better than the suit they made:

Now they don't have to use the practical suit all the time. He can be partly mo-capped like Iron Man's suit it, especially when flexibility is needed. But the Thing suit should still exist and not be a completely animated or CGI character.

Wish Guillermo del Toro where doing this movie. He would make a High Quality practical prosthetic version for normal dialog heavy scenes. Then use a High Quaintly CGI version for the action sequences.

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[pr0xyt0xin]

Wish Guillermo del Toro where doing this movie. He would make a High Quality practical prosthetic version for normal dialog heavy scenes. Then use a High Quaintly CGI version for the action sequences.

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No thanks to Del Toro. I have nothing against him, I just think he should stick to fantasy and mystical as opposed the the F4 more sci fi based.

 

[Willie Lumpkin]

Considering what Weta and Fox did with Planet of the Apes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XM9Pvfq1KhE

With a main character that was fully CGI plus hundreds of other CGI characters all on a reasonable budget, I can't see how a fully CGI Thing is any kind of insurmountable barrier.

 

[pr0xyt0xin]

Considering what Weta and Fox did with Planet of the Apes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XM9Pvfq1KhE

With a main character that was fully CGI plus hundreds of other CGI characters all on a reasonable budget, I can't see how a fully CGI Thing is any kind of insurmountable barrier.

dude yeah. plus a CGI Thing may have only an hour or less of screen time in the first installment of a F4 reboot.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes had a production budget of $93 million.
Assuming Fox takes it seriously, Fantastic Four will have probably close to double that.

Movies like Planet Hulk, Fantastic Four (with a CGI Thing) and Namor are just around the corner. For some reason, fans just don't see it yet.

 

[terry78]

CG only costs a lot when the guys you have on your team have to work harder and you have some connections. ILM and WETA have done work for lower budget flicks that was insanely more impressive than a lot of big budget flicks.

 

[SlamAdams]

CG only costs a lot when the guys you have on your team have to work harder and you have some connections. ILM and WETA have done work for lower budget flicks that was insanely more impressive than a lot of big budget flicks.

Thats true, but sometimes I wonder if that has more to do with smart budgeting than whether its high or low.

 

[terry78]

As horrible as the movie was, I use Son of the Mask as an example of ILM basically doing some simple crappy work which frankly still looked better than a lot of other studios' top caliber stuff.

 

[bubbadoom]

Digital or practical - it all depends on who you hire, how well you plan it, and how much you are willing to spend.

Even WETA dropped the ball on the Surfer in FF2 and had to resort to a complete digital character for his "silver" scenes - rather than mapping the reflections onto him as they had sold Fox on. I suspect this is one of the reasons the budget climbed to $120 million.

The digital giants in JACK THE GIANT SLAYER look like total crap - and I bet they had a decent budget. I think WETA did APES on the cheap because they were co-producers of the show, maybe they'll do the same on the new FF.

It was suggested above that the FF budget may be almost twice the APES budget - or $180 million - I will be very surprised if FOX makes that kind of a commitment to this.

 

[bubbadoom]

No thanks to Del Toro. I have nothing against him, I just think he should stick to fantasy and mystical as opposed the the F4 more sci fi based.

PACIFIC RIM is pretty sci fi based - and GdT did a fine job with that! He was asked to direct the first FF before Tim Story was hired.

 

[pr0xyt0xin]

Pacific Rim isn't out yet...

 

[pr0xyt0xin]

It was suggested above that the FF budget may be almost twice the APES budget - or $180 million - I will be very surprised if FOX makes that kind of a commitment to this.

I won't be entirely surprised. lets look at some of my reasoning:

F4: Rise of the Silver Surfer (an unsuccessful piece of garbage): $120 million in 2007
X:Men First Class (Fox's last Marvel movie and a fairly well received reboot): $160 million in 2011.
Thor/Captain America (2011 solo CBM flicks): $150/140 million
Avengers/Amazing Spider-Man/The Dark Knight Rises: all over $220 million
Iron Man 3/Man of Steel/Thor:TDW: all estimated over $200 million

and to be fair, i said almost double. on the low side I say $170 million for a superhero teamup film in 2015. At least for me to take it seriously.

 

[terry78]

Pacific Rim isn't out yet...

That means nothing. We can tell how good a movie is by a five second clip if we love the people involved.

 

[Willie Lumpkin]

If Fox isn't willing to spend at least $200 mil on this, I think it will just illustrate that they don't recognize FF as the single most valuable comic-based property remaining that hasn't yet been done to anything near it's potential.

And part of recognizing that potential is recognizing that The Thing is one of the greatest visual characters of all time. If the Thing is really done right - the way Jack Kirby showed him, powerful, dynamic, amazing to behold - he will be the element that brings people into theaters.

Think about the Avengers. If we had to pick one single element of the Avengers that people were most interested in seeing, wasn't it the Hulk?

The Thing is Hulk-like in that just seeing him in action on the screen will make it all worth it.

 

[terry78]

Yeah, but they were able to compensate by having him only show up twice and then, only to roar and growl and respond by expression. Thing is basically a full on human character who will be acting and carrying on conversations, probably for more than a minute or so.

 

[Kelly]

Yeah, but they were able to compensate by having him only show up twice and then, only to roar and growl and respond by expression. Thing is basically a full on human character who will be acting and carrying on conversations, probably for more than a minute or so.

And they will have to make him emote many more emotions than angry, and normal...

 

[Willie Lumpkin]

Yeah, but they were able to compensate by having him only show up twice and then, only to roar and growl and respond by expression. Thing is basically a full on human character who will be acting and carrying on conversations, probably for more than a minute or so.

And they will have to make him emote many more emotions than angry, and normal...

These factors could be the one argument I can imagine for why Fox could actually be preferable to Marvel/Disney for his production.

Caesar in Planet of the Apes had plenty of screen time and plenty of emotion. If Marvel/Disney can't pull that off within budget and Fox can, maybe we should factor that into our otherwise negative opinion of Fox.

 

[pr0xyt0xin]

These factors could be the one argument I can imagine for why Fox could actually be preferable to Marvel/Disney for his production.

Caesar in Planet of the Apes had plenty of screen time and plenty of emotion. If Marvel/Disney can't pull that off within budget and Fox can, maybe we should factor that into our otherwise negative opinion of Fox.

interesting theory... for sure.

 

[terry78]

Disney did Tars Tarkas, and while that may not be the best example from a financial standpoint, something on par with that would work.

 

[bubbadoom]

That means nothing. We can tell how good a movie is by a five second clip if we love the people involved.

there have been PACIFIC RIM screening - it's complete enough to tell if it's good or not...

 

[bubbadoom]

I won't be entirely surprised. lets look at some of my reasoning:

F4: Rise of the Silver Surfer (an unsuccessful piece of garbage): $120 million in 2007
X:Men First Class (Fox's last Marvel movie and a fairly well received reboot): $160 million in 2011.
Thor/Captain America (2011 solo CBM flicks): $150/140 million
Avengers/Amazing Spider-Man/The Dark Knight Rises: all over $220 million
Iron Man 3/Man of Steel/Thor:TDW: all estimated over $200 million

and to be fair, i said almost double. on the low side I say $170 million for a superhero teamup film in 2015. At least for me to take it seriously.

I agree that Fox SHOULD spend that kind of money, I am just not sure they will. Just because Marvel and Sony are willing to sink that kind of cash into their films does not mean Fox will follow.
I suspect the only reason FIRST CLASS got the size of budget they did - which was significantly less than X3 was because X3 had been the most profitable of the series.
Not sure that Fox has that kind of faith in the FF.
Hope they do.

 

[Willie Lumpkin]

Disney did Tars Tarkas, and while that may not be the best example from a financial standpoint, something on par with that would work.

They also did Davey Jones in POTC. With characters like Yoda, Gollum, King Kong, Caesar etc. etc. I think a CGI thing could definitely be done and look amazing in the right hands.

 

[Vartha]

They also did Davey Jones in POTC. With characters like Yoda, Gollum, King Kong, Caesar etc. etc. I think a CGI thing could definitely be done and look amazing in the right hands.

hahaha I thought you were reffering to the MONKEYS' Davey Jones hahaha

 

[terry78]

^How old are you again?

 

[terry78]

I know Anson Mount has been thrown around as a lead in a superhero flick, but I'd like to see him as pre-Thing Grimm and providing the mocap. Ben was supposed to be a handsome dude on par with Reed before the transformation and pretty big.

 

[Vartha]

^How old are you again?

lol 52 as of yesterday I was born the year the FF were created.