Old MCU Fantastic Four Discussion Thread

[OB12]

JK is being thought of for casting simply because he and EB come as a pair, in an existing relationship, if they were not married, I guarantee JK would not be anywhere near the discussion for Reed casting.

Eh, I don't know about that. Krasinski has clearly been on Marvel's radar for a while since he was very close to being Captain America. He has seemingly been on the periphery of Marvel for ages, so that naturally lends him to being in discussions on fan castings.

 

[Zarex]

Isn’t Kang purple and green? We have had enough failures with this franchise I Hope the MCU don’t go woke and screw this casting up. They MUST top all previous F4 films by having not only a comic book accurate appearance but get the best actors regardless of race. Is that too much to ask for? You want a diverse team make your own up.

Kang wears a multi colored helmet. Underneath it he's a white fella, at least in the comics.

Edit: do a comics accurate Fantastic four first like they just did with Spidey then after that is gone and retired hell go and do all the different races F4 you want. Just get it right first and experiment with the multiverses after. I’m a POC but I prefer my comic book and video game adaptations to be accurate to the source material. So if they make TChalla white or Asian I would be equally up in arms about it

I like my comic book characters onscreen to look an awful lot like their cartoon counterparts. But even the wonderfully cast Avengers Big Three are all quite a bit smaller than the supersized versions in the mags. So you have to allow for some flexibility in casting. A darker skinned Reed, for example, could still look an awful lot like the cartoon in The World's Greatest Comic Magazine. I would prefer to keep the Storm siblings pale though.

And suggesting that black Reed is the same as making the OG African superhero white or Asian is a TURRRRIBLE comparison.

 

[metaphysician]

Re: the Fantastic Four and race/ethnicity. By and large, such is irrelevant to the characters and their story. The only real restrictions are that Johnny and Sue ought to be the *same* ethnicity, because they are siblings, and Ben really ought to be Jewish ( not quite the same as ethnicity, but it overlaps ). None of them are close to the level of visual iconography of someone like Superman, where even just the simple change in appearance would be an issue.

Re: Superman, no, I am comfortable saying he is still super popular. That his movies have not been, is mostly an artifact of his movies having been terrible for decades. Note that even in the criticism of said movies, it almost always comes from a perspective of "Here is what Superman means to me". That is the kind of sign that the character is meaningful, to large numbers of people. You don't get that kind of attachment without popularity, its just a sort of latent omnipresent popularity.

 

[MilkmanDan]

This fancast is boring and based on hair colour 9 times out of 10. Krasinski/Blunt aren't the best for the roles as there are countless other actors who can do it. Plus having a married couple in the role can lead to problems if the relationship goes bad. It's called acting for a reason and those involved don't have to be married in real life.

The fan-casting wouldn't be popular if they didn't have the same hair colour as the characters and if they weren't married in real life. It's just a really shallow fancast.

Also I find Krasinski to be a really mediocre actor. Blunt is fine, that casting would bore me but I'll live. Krasinski on the other hand I don't get it beyond him superficially being a brown haired white guy.

I think a big part of Krasinski's appeal is that he can play both an action hero and a science dork. In addition he has a fairly likeable screen presence which I think could benefit a less than colourful character like Reed. Although I'm sure things like his age, hair-colour and relationship with Blunt are factors as well.

 

[metaphysician]

To switch things up a bit.

What changes from the source material does everyone want to see?

I personally want Sue to be an MD or something along those lines.

I don't want Sue an MD, that's kind of a cliche in its own right. What I would like to see is Sue as. . . basically, she's the sociologist and diplomat. This can be by formal training or amateur talent, but she does people. In the team, she is basically the female version of Daniel Jackson, for all you Stargate SG-1 fans out there.

Or for the flip side of the coin, what I *don't* want to see is Sue and Johnny being on the origin story mission despite lacking any and all competences that would justify their presence. "Bring along my useless girlfriend and her even more useless kid brother, because I want to get in Sue's pants" is *not* an acceptable plot decision.

 

[metaphysician]

I’ll avoid participating in the race-bending debate because frankly it’s gotten really tired at this point. All I’ll say is a good and comic accurate FF film can be made despite some of the races of the characters being swapped. One can be ‘comic accurate’ in ways other than simply casting the characters as the same race from the comics. Comic accurate costumes, visual style, characterization are also a thing besides race-accurate casting.

That being said, if they go with an all white FF then there will be no complaint from me. If they go with a white Reed then how about a more inspired choice than John Krasinski, no? There’s plenty of white male actors who are not only far better actors, but also a better fit than him, imo.

Honestly, I would add to this that. . . frankly, some of the most comic *unfaithful* adaptations, or proposed adaptations, have worn the banner of "comic accurate". Number one offender: Batman v Superman, which managed to get literally every aspect of the source material wrong *except* for a couple specific visuals. . . and was thus defended as "comic accurate". I get *really* suspicious when I hear people talking about "keeping accurate to the comics", because far more often than not this goes skin deep only, with little or no concern for theme or characterization.

 

[Marvel united]

Almost every icon wouldn’t be white if more people would support creatives creating new characters of color that are original and built up from the ground.

Easier said than done. Brands are what sell today. These brands have solidified into pop culture over the course of 70 some years. It's almost impossible to make a meaningful contribution today that isn't rooted in an existing iconography

Some are trying. Take Kwezi for instance. A comic abt an original Black South African superhero written & created by Black South Africans... It's a decent comic with some interesting ideas, but it will never match the impact of making Iron Man a Black girl from Chicago. Because that's an icon that means something to billions of people.. Kwezi, unfortunately, is not.

Thats just the way it is. Hopefully Michael B. Jordan comes through in bringing some of those characters from Milestone to the big screen.

Is there something inherently wrong with a black Reed, Sue or whatever? No. And as I stated, I’m seeing the film regardless. But there is something to be said about always wanting POC versions of traditionally white characters. I grew up loving Brandy’s Cinderella in the 90s. It’s a great version. But it’s 2021 and she’s still seen as “Black Cinderella” by the masses and every actress that has portrayed the character since has been white. And the same thing will happen with the upcoming Mermaid iteration. Such progress. Historically accurate or new POC representation should be first and foremost championed and preferred over race-bending. Period. Next topic. When do you think this is released? 2023 or 2024?

Any changes Marvel makes to their characters will eventually make their way to the comics for brand synergy. I imagine after Little Mermaid comes out, this will start happening with Ariel as well.

 

[metaphysician]

Almost every icon wouldn’t be white if more people would support creatives creating new characters of color that are original and built up from the ground. Is there something inherently wrong with a black Reed, Sue or whatever? No. And as I stated, I’m seeing the film regardless. But there is something to be said about always wanting POC versions of traditionally white characters. I grew up loving Brandy’s Cinderella in the 90s. It’s a great version. But it’s 2021 and she’s still seen as “Black Cinderella” by the masses and every actress that has portrayed the character since has been white. And the same thing will happen with the upcoming Mermaid iteration. Such progress. Historically accurate or new POC representation should be first and foremost championed and preferred over race-bending. Period. Next topic. When do you think this is released? 2023 or 2024?

See, this is a fundamentally unreasonable demand, because it ignores one huge factor: the incumbent advantage. Established characters and stories will *always* have an advantage over new ones, because they got their first, establishing their presence in the cultural milieu. Fundamentally, the market favors established properties, because people would rather spend their money on something they have reason to believe they will like, rather than on something they have no such assurance. That is why sequels and reboots and spinoffs are so popular, even as people complain about an alleged problem with innovation. Yes, you can find individual people who are exceptions, who eagerly and aggressively experiment. When talking 9 digit movie budgets, these people are too small a segment to matter.

Trying to take an entirely new character, and bootstrap them up to even an approximation of the cultural relevance of 50+ year old ( nigh exclusively white male ) characters, is *really really hard*. And simply saying "people should support new characters" is not a plan, its not even an outline. At best it happens by pure chance, where a new character is in exactly the right place at the right time to catch on with the general audience.

 

[Marvel united]

Kang wears a multi colored helmet. Underneath it he's a white fella, at least in the comics.



I like my comic book characters onscreen to look an awful lot like their cartoon counterparts. But even the wonderfully cast Avengers Big Three are all quite a bit smaller than the supersized versions in the mags. So you have to allow for some flexibility in casting. A darker skinned Reed, for example, could still look an awful lot like the cartoon in The World's Greatest Comic Magazine. I would prefer to keep the Storm siblings pale though.

Suggesting that black Reed is the same as making the OG African superhero white or Asian is a TURRRRIBLE comparison.

Like? Wakanda was never colonized. The film deals with the legacy of colonialism as it pertains to how it's shaped the experience of Africans around the globe; how Wakanda is indirectly responsible for this trauma.

T'Challa can't be anything other than Black, otherwise you have to rewrite the entire mythology from the ground up.

Black Panther is the worst example you can use

 

[JeanGreyFan318]

See, this is a fundamentally unreasonable demand, because it ignores one huge factor: the incumbent advantage. Established characters and stories will *always* have an advantage over new ones, because they got their first, establishing their presence in the cultural milieu. Fundamentally, the market favors established properties, because people would rather spend their money on something they have reason to believe they will like, rather than on something they have no such assurance. That is why sequels and reboots and spinoffs are so popular, even as people complain about an alleged problem with innovation. Yes, you can find individual people who are exceptions, who eagerly and aggressively experiment. When talking 9 digit movie budgets, these people are too small a segment to matter.

Trying to take an entirely new character, and bootstrap them up to even an approximation of the cultural relevance of 50+ year old ( nigh exclusively white male ) characters, is *really really hard*. And simply saying "people should support new characters" is not a plan, its not even an outline. At best it happens by pure chance, where a new character is in exactly the right place at the right time to catch on with the general audience.

You are 100% correct. Companies are in business to make money. That’s why they do it. Piggyback off the success. It’s the easiest and quickest way to make a buck.

That’s why it’s insulting. DC spends 80 years developing Batman as an original, allowing his legend to grow through the decades but won’t put in the work for characters of color. And then call their half-hearted attempts diversity. Really?

 

[Willie Lumpkin]

Marvel hasn’t let me down with casting so far.

I’m not going to fall into the trap of getting a certain cast in mind and then being disappointed if I don’t get it.

I’ll see who we get and decide, once we have the full cast, if it works or not.

 

[metaphysician]

You are 100% correct. Companies are in business to make money. That’s why they do it. Piggyback off the success. It’s the easiest and quickest way to make a buck.

That’s why it’s insulting. DC spends 80 years developing Batman as an original, allowing his legend to grow through the decades but won’t put in the work for characters of color. And then call their half-hearted attempts diversity. Really?

Why should they be expected to put in 80 years of effort to *maybe* establish a new icon? Their purpose isn't to go out and build new cultural icons custom, their purpose is to make money. If your starting position is "They, a business, should invest in a multi-generational scheme such that *maybe* their kids will see it turn a profit", your starting position is unreasonable. WB is an entertainment company, not a planetary colonization business.

The legacy hero system was how they *should* have handled increasing diversity ( and just generally as a means to introduce new concepts and characters over time ), and it worked fine at doing that. And then DC decided to take like 20 years of success, and flush it down the toilet.

 

[Silvermoth]

I hope we see a truly futuristic Baxter building. Like, just let them go crazy with it so it’s different from stark/avengers tower

 

[Stark Bauer]

Mickey Mouse - Is the most recognizable mascot on the planet

Superman - Has tons of merch and everyone plus their grandma knows who he is and what he's about

Wonder Woman - The same as Superman but to a lesser extent. Even before her first ever film she had tons of merch and many knew what she was about.

The FF aren't in that league and aren't well-known outside of comics. That's why this MCU film is so important, it's their last chance to be important to the general audience.
The GA don't care about their race because they don't know the characters enough, it's the least important thing about the team. If Marvel decides to change Reed, or Sue and Johnny it's not a big deal.

people said the same thing about Iron Man before 2008 that this was a D list character from Marvel. I would argue FF is more popular now than Iron Man ever was pre 2008. They were just under X Men and Spiderman in the 90s popularity-wise

 

[Stark Bauer]

Eh, I don't know about that. Krasinski has clearly been on Marvel's radar for a while since he was very close to being Captain America. He has seemingly been on the periphery of Marvel for ages, so that naturally lends him to being in discussions on fan castings.

JK is similar to Chris Pratt. He’s tailor made for the MCU. His characters usually comes across as genuine and relatable. His comedic style is very much in the same vein as Chris Pratt and RDJ very witty and 4th wall breaking. He has proven he can do it all. Action, drama and comedy. And he has been successful in all categories. The artists are even drawing Reed to look more and more like Krasinski. Possibly to condition F4 fans to the impending look. I would be very shocked if he wasn’t Feige’s first pick.

 

[Stark Bauer]

Honestly, I would add to this that. . . frankly, some of the most comic *unfaithful* adaptations, or proposed adaptations, have worn the banner of "comic accurate". Number one offender: Batman v Superman, which managed to get literally every aspect of the source material wrong *except* for a couple specific visuals. . . and was thus defended as "comic accurate". I get *really* suspicious when I hear people talking about "keeping accurate to the comics", because far more often than not this goes skin deep only, with little or no concern for theme or characterization.

I agree but the MCU has shown us time and again that they can get both right. So is it too much to ask for screen accuracy and even more importantly accurate characterization? We need news soon lol

 

[Stark Bauer]

Easier said than done. Brands are what sell today. These brands have solidified into pop culture over the course of 70 some years. It's almost impossible to make a meaningful contribution today that isn't rooted in an existing iconography

Some are trying. Take Kwezi for instance. A comic abt an original Black South African superhero written & created by Black South Africans... It's a decent comic with some interesting ideas, but it will never match the impact of making Iron Man a Black girl from Chicago. Because that's an icon that means something to billions of people.. Kwezi, unfortunately, is not.

Thats just the way it is. Hopefully Michael B. Jordan comes through in bringing some of those characters from Milestone to the big screen.



Any changes Marvel makes to their characters will eventually make their way to the comics for brand synergy. I imagine after Little Mermaid comes out, this will start happening with Ariel as well.

i really liked what Image did making Spawn and Shadowhawk African/Black American. Miles Morales is one of the best things to come out of Sony Pictures in decades. It can be done. Shang Chi will prove as. Black Panther did that there is a vast untapped market for original diverse characters built from the ground up. Heck there are a lot of diverse characters that are being underused but I am happy to see MCU is waking up to this. Even Star Wars is making progress in this category - with the Mandalorian in particular.

 

[Stark Bauer]

See, this is a fundamentally unreasonable demand, because it ignores one huge factor: the incumbent advantage. Established characters and stories will *always* have an advantage over new ones, because they got their first, establishing their presence in the cultural milieu. Fundamentally, the market favors established properties, because people would rather spend their money on something they have reason to believe they will like, rather than on something they have no such assurance. That is why sequels and reboots and spinoffs are so popular, even as people complain about an alleged problem with innovation. Yes, you can find individual people who are exceptions, who eagerly and aggressively experiment. When talking 9 digit movie budgets, these people are too small a segment to matter.

Trying to take an entirely new character, and bootstrap them up to even an approximation of the cultural relevance of 50+ year old ( nigh exclusively white male ) characters, is *really really hard*. And simply saying "people should support new characters" is not a plan, its not even an outline. At best it happens by pure chance, where a new character is in exactly the right place at the right time to catch on with the general audience.

Stan Lee and Jack Kirby were on a creative tear back in the 60s. Hit after hit after hit. The closest thing to that today is the guy that did Kick Ass, Wanted, Kingsman- Mark Millar. Creators are less creative in comics today. I would argue more of the innovation and creativity is in video games. We see new stories and characters resonating with audiences over there. So many original IPs. Thankfully Comics are picking up and more people are reading comics thanks to the MCU

 

[Crimz]

people said the same thing about Iron Man before 2008 that this was a D list character from Marvel. I would argue FF is more popular now than Iron Man ever was pre 2008. They were just under X Men and Spiderman in the 90s popularity-wise

Sure, but the point I was making is that they aren't "too iconic to change". You'll get some people upset at a race change, but the majority will not care.
I also think the Iron Man example is more of a testament to how a great film and media exposure can do wonders for a character. Even the Avengers were likely less popular/well known than the FF before the MCU made them big.

 

[Willie Lumpkin]

WandaVision's weirdest Easter egg teases a shocking upcoming Marvel movie



“Typing Babs Digby itself into Google will give you a few different results. The one that caught our eyes though, was the Wikipedia page for the 1940s radio program and TV series, THE LIFE OF RILEY, which featured one character named Babs and another character named — you guessed it — Digby.

On the surface, this may seem like WandaVision just throwing in yet another reference to an iconic '40s and '50s program. A closer look, however, reveals an obscure connection between The Life of Riley and the Marvel comics.

It turns out The Life of Riley was responsible for popularizing the catchphrase, “What a revoltin' development this is!”

 

[TheVileOne]

WandaVision's weirdest Easter egg teases a shocking upcoming Marvel movie

Well that was a lot of clickbait to sift through...

 

[Willie Lumpkin]

Well that was a lot of clickbait to sift through...

Okay, I edited it. Sadly not in time to save you, but at least no one else will have to suffer that horror.

 

[TheVileOne]

Okay, I edited it. Sadly not in time to save you, but at least no one else will have to suffer that horror.

It's not your fault, but that headline wording was bad. To call that some sort of shocking Marvel movie is a stretch.

They really oversold this as some sort of shocking dramatic Easter egg for Fantastic Four.

 

[Willie Lumpkin]

It's not your fault, but that headline wording was bad. To call that some sort of shocking Marvel movie is a stretch.

They really oversold this as some sort of shocking dramatic Easter egg for Fantastic Four.

Yeah. It’s not shocking and it doesn’t hint at anything regarding the FF film, but we have discussed the origin of that phrase in here, so I think that Easter egg was aimed directly at the people on this thread.

 

[Marvel united]

Any ideas for the first trilogy?

FF1 - Moleman/Subterranea

FF2 - Annihilus/Blastaar/Negative Zone

FF3 - Future Foundation (?)