Oh please, you know exactly what I was implying.
There was a six month period between the end of shooting and Fox finally releasing some promotional material. In between that six month hiatus there was nothing but complete radio silence on Fox's end, and a plethora of rumors from a variety of different sources claiming there was some disquiet at the studio surrounding the picture.
So?
1. Rumors are rumors until they are proven true or false.
2. Since when has "disquiet" at a studio prevented a studio from still trying to hype or promote a film they spent a lot of money on?
I never bought into a lot of it, such as Trank being off the picture or trashing a house, but in general where there is smoke, there's fire. You can chose to write that all off if you'd like, but I have a hard time buying it when the film makers indirectly address the rumors and pretend that "we don't want to release anything until it's ready to be seen".
There may well have been trouble with the production. Given the nature of creativity and creators, there is probably a major issue or seven with ANY production. I don't think issues with the production would or did ever equal FOX being unable to cut together a favorable 2 minute teaser until now because they simply couldn't show ANYTHING. That's just illogical.
It's been a PR nightmare from start to finish and if there was nothing to hide, they'd have come out and said it before now and it would have helped this film out in the long run.
PR nightmares require actual PR issues. Not just rumors blown WELL out of proportion by fans (The film isn't actually being shot or made, etc, etc).
It's only been a "PR nightmare" in the sense that since very little was known despite clamoring for information, some people jumped to drastic conclusions about pretty much every aspect of the production. In other words, because they were ignorant about its nature, they assumed or conceived things about it based on incredibly minimal information.
I very much doubt that FOX actually thinks they had anything resembling a PR nightmare on their hands. Most people, indeed as we've seen, most superhero fans, simply don't care that much. Or didn't, until this trailer was released.
I can get behind the fact that Josh Trank in general likes to hold off on releasing things for his films, but if you buy for a second that a major movie studio like Fox held off on hyping up their multi-million dollar picture to respect the artistic vision of a film-maker with one movie under his belt, then I have a bridge to sell you.
Here's the thing. I don't recall anyone saying that this was only done because of Josh Trank's artistic vision.
And I don't really care whether they held off on it because of the artistic vision or because they simply didn't feel like spending money or didn't want to compete with The Avengers, Batman V Superman, and other films with limited resources. The point is it was intentional to do so. There was no "normal" marketing campaign gearing up that FOX suddenly changed direction on in a panic. You're right about where there's smoke there's fire. And it applies to more than bad rumors. And the simplest explanation is often the correct one. Odds are that regardless of whatever issues this production has/had, that this method of drumming up interest and marketing the film was the studio's plan all along. You don't just accidentally have no marketing campaign for a film, low budget or otherwise.
Something was going on behind the scenes, and it's something they don't want us to know about. I'm not sure if you've been following this production closely but there have been at this point dozens of rumors from various sources all generally saying the same thing, all met with silence from the studio in question.
Well yes, they don't want us to know, or they would have said something. That's common sense. But given the "radio" silence, its possible they didn't want us to know ANYTHING, be it bad OR good, until their presentation was ready.
Yes, FOX was silent about rumors. FOX as a studio is generally silent when it comes to rumors, especially when they are ridiculous ones (like that the film wasn't actually being shot or made). Several other major studios, including Warner Brothers, take a similar approach to rumors, with a few exceptions.
You can either chose to ignore that and write it off as mere noise and tell me my assertions have no proof, but I can throw the exact thing back on people taking the film makers at face value and buying into their damage control.
The difference is that one of the explanations for this outcome is logical and straightforward, and one is a vast conspiracy about a doomed film, which we now see probably wasn't actually having some of those "rumored" issues simply based on the very existence of it.
Finally, how is showing what they actually have created and explaining their take on it inherently "damage control"?
Damage control requires a concentrated effort to change people's perceptions about something. Damage control would be if they wasted effort on combating said rumors. THAT's damage control. They spent a LOT more time in the few interviews we've seen talking about what they feel the Fantastic Four are and should be about than they did in addressing any of those rumors. In other words, they spent very little effort on damage control, all things considered.
So no, I'm sorry, there's not really any concrete evidence, nor is there any logical reason that they simply "hid this from the world due to horrible problems", and are suddenly all right with showing people what they had all along.
And to be honest, I don't CARE why they didn't show anything about the film at this point. Because they've started laying their cards on the table now.
