What Changed Between Cuts?: Trank vs FOX

[MadVillainy]

So now that this is out and we're all getting what many of us suspected, it sucks.

Anyway, Im wondering if anyone of you have news or speculation about what happened on FOX's accord and what had Trank planned all along.

I don't have anything but I don't think this is a case of FOX stepping in and ruining what could've been a really cool movie. I think both Trank and FOX are to blame

 

[Tony Stark]

I will disagree about Fox stepping in to ruin a really cool movie. It's clear that Fox stepped in because what Trank shot was 90% unusable, and the test screenings for the rough cuts of what Trank put together were poor. Add to that all the alleged trouble that Trank was causing and this was a case where likely Kinberg had to step in and play adult. Getting fired from Star Wars at the same time only reinforces that point.

The only one thing I can point to that changed, is dropping Victor Domachev and the internet blog stuff, and going back to Victor Von Doom.

 

[Marathon]

I don't think they hired Trank to be a mere gun-for-hire director to do a workmanlike, journeyman job. They probably wanted a Trankian (is that a word?) picture but the test screenings simply must have gone down horribly. It happens, even for pictures with quasi-auteur-ish directors. For example, Webb's TASM screened very badly and was re-edited in a mad rush to get it into theaters on time (the "untold story" guff was only taken down from promotional materials in April. Absolute lunacy.

)

 

[Krystal]

What changed?
They cut out a ton of trank's boring crap and added some really bad action.

The end.

 

[Tim_Riggins]

See the movie, then come back here and truly realize what went wrong.

 

[Deaths Head II]

Spoiler

Well interviews talked about how the Fantastic Four were supposed to be more like disabled people and that there was supposed to be a body horror element to the film. But from what it sounds like, the body horror element is largely what we see in the trailers. The movie does do a jarring time jump so I have a feeling the producers cut out the Fantastic Four learning their powers. Some scenes of the heroes showing off their powers from the trailers are even missing from the film. One big example is the Thing dropping from the plane, so that might have been him early on working for the military. The big question is if these scenes were removed because they were awful or because fans complained about the body horror comments.

We also know that Doom was supposed to be a hacker/blogger named "Victor Domashev". Some elements of the hacker persona are still present in the final film but they apparently ADRed the name "Victor Von Doom" over the original name. There was some rumors about Doom having "Doombots" but none of that is present in the final film. But who knows if it was in Trank's original ending because apparently the third act had to be completely reworked during reshoots. The biggest complaint about the film is the jarring ending so I'm certain Fox changed it. But we don't know what Trank's original ending was.

 

[Zeus]

Trank realized the only way for the FF rights to get back to Marvel is to show everyone something...disastrous.

He left us something to poop on and give Fox's PR team a real task of cleaning it up.

 

[Eddie]

See the movie, then come back here and truly realize what went wrong.

Oh dear lord. Go see it anyway, even though you'll hate it!

 

[Random490]

I wouldn't exactly believe the Trank behavior rumor. It could be that he bump heads with FOX a lot, but that can be par for the course. I recall somewhat say being a direct is fighting between what you want to do and you're allow or forced to do. And I could just as easily picture him leaving star wars because he didn't want to deal with a major franchise so soon.

Believe it not director can be hard, stressful, difficult, even if you work as hard as you can the end result may not be great. This is only his second film directing and big step up in production than Chronicle, he may have found it too taxing. A lot of film makers get burnt out and want to do something different that they're more passionate about. That's why Joss Whedon did Much Ado About Nothing between Avengers films.

I'm just saying until someone stands out and says "Yes there were a lot of problems with this guy or that guy" just take it with a grain of salt.

As for what was cut out, I didn't see the movie and don't plan to cause frankly other than the cast everything I've read about the film since it's conception just sounded awful, and I refuse to hand money over to it. But from what I hear the major complaint of the film is that it takes forever to get going and the action doesn't start until the end. I'm betting there was a whole section dedicated to the four coming to terms with their powers and the military using them for missions (thus the scene with the Thing jumping from the helicopter that apparantly isn't in the film). I have a feeling that movie felt like it was dragging on specially since

Spoiler

I suspect Reed wasn't even there for any of those scenes

and they felt they needed to streamline the film and focus on the main plot (if you can call it that).

 

[Tim_Riggins]

Yeah the time jump in the movie is where it starts going wrong, the body horror scene is actually great, I wish they spent more time on that. And remember Reed asking (supposedly) Doom "What's coming?" and Doom saying "The answers", that's not in the movie either.


@Random: exactly, rumors are rumors, Trank comes across as a nice, cool guy on Kev Smith's podcast and it's pretty laid back, he just does not strike me as the kind of guy who would berate Kate Mara on set, or would show up high as a kite, or whatever.

For the movie taking forever to get going, I wouldn't say that, it just feels more like a sci fi movie (which according to the podcast is what Trank is going for) than a superhero movie, and when the ****** action comes, it just feels more like someone came in to fit that obligatory actioney third act and that just clashes completely with the rest of Trank's movie.

And yes, about Reed

Spoiler

he checks out right after the body horror sequence, he tells Ben he's going to come back for him, and just runs. He's in hiding while looking for Ben, trying to fix him and the rest of his friends, I like that idea. Then he's brought back in, and this is like 20 min before the ending of the movie

 

[Tony Stark]

Yeah the time jump in the movie is where it starts going wrong, the body horror scene is actually great, I wish they spent more time on that. And remember Reed asking (supposedly) Doom "What's coming?" and Doom saying "The answers", that's not in the movie either.


@Random: exactly, rumors are rumors, Trank comes across as a nice, cool guy on Kev Smith's podcast and it's pretty laid back, he just does not strike me as the kind of guy who would berate Kate Mara on set, or would show up high as a kite, or whatever.

For the movie taking forever to get going, I wouldn't say that, it just feels more like a sci fi movie (which according to the podcast is what Trank is going for) than a superhero movie, and when the ****** action comes, it just feels more like someone came in to fit that obligatory actioney third act and that just clashes completely with the rest of Trank's movie.

And yes, about Reed

Spoiler

he checks out right after the body horror sequence, he tells Ben he's going to come back for him, and just runs. He's in hiding while looking for Ben, trying to fix him and the rest of his friends, I like that idea. Then he's brought back in, and this is like 20 min before the ending of the movie

Miles Teller appears as a nice young kid too, but according to his own words he's a total **** and loves to get stoned all the time.

Appearances don't mean anything, unless you're talking Shia LeBeouf or Lindsay Lohan.

 

[Comicbookguy339]

I'm wondering if FOX higher ups miscalculated by doing extensive reshoots (maybe Trank's original footage was too light on action for them) or if what Trank had shot was even worse than what we got as a result of the rushed reshot second half of the film.

 

[amazingfantasy15]

Everything I've seen and heard about this movie just clashes with the Fantastic Four "brand". Tim Story's movies were not great at all, but he knew the material at least, showing the Fantastic Four as celebrities. The franchise should be light hearted and fun, this missed the mark and hopefully Fox just let's the rights slip away or makes a deal with Marvel. I think Fox's best bet is to get some merchandising right's for X-Men in exchange for the Fantastic Four movie rights.

 

[TheVileOne]

Everything I've seen and heard about this movie just clashes with the Fantastic Four "brand". Tim Story's movies were not great at all, but he knew the material at least, showing the Fantastic Four as celebrities. The franchise should be light hearted and fun, this missed the mark and hopefully Fox just let's the rights slip away or makes a deal with Marvel. I think Fox's best bet is to get some merchandising right's for X-Men in exchange for the Fantastic Four movie rights.

He might've known the material, but he was the wrong director for it.

 

[MadVillainy]

Speaking of Victor von Doom: In an early interview, Toby Kebbell said his character would be named Victor Domashev, a computer hacker who used “Doom” as his online name. None of that is in the movie. Fantastic Four underwent some pretty infamous re-shoots, and it’s apparent that the re-shoots scrapped any mention of “Victor Domashev.” It’s weird, because the first time we meet Victor, he has long hair and is wearing some sort of Google Glass-type device while sitting behind maybe five computer screens. The next time we see him, he’s clean cut and computers are never mentioned again.

http://uproxx.com/movies/2015/08/fantastic-four-review/

Miles Teller appears as a nice young kid too, but according to his own words he's a total **** and loves to get stoned all the time.

Appearances don't mean anything, unless you're talking Shia LeBeouf or Lindsay Lohan.

I mean getting stones all the time isn't a big deal if you can still function

But I get what youre saying.

I mean the biggest thing that didn't even click to me is what someone ssaid in another thread. That article about Teller came out and Mara, MBJ, and Bell came to his defense. All these rumors about Trank and they said nothing.
Obviously it hasn't been confirmed but I think you have some serious blinders on if you still don't think something is up with Trank

 

[SyntaxError]

Well we don't even know who did what.

A lot of Chronicle fans are blaming Fox for 'big studio intervention' and messing up Tranks' movie. But for all we know Trank's final product could have been even worse, and it was Fox that managed to salvage it.

I think it was just a failure across the board. The studio for appointing an inexperienced director with a track record of on-set difficulties, the director for being incompetent in principle photography, the producers for being unable to handle the situation, and whoever did the editing.

 

[Tony Stark]

http://uproxx.com/movies/2015/08/fantastic-four-review/



I mean getting stones all the time isn't a big deal if you can still function

But I get what youre saying.

I mean the biggest thing that didn't even click to me is what someone ssaid in another thread. That article about Teller came out and Mara, MBJ, and Bell came to his defense. All these rumors about Trank and they said nothing.
Obviously it hasn't been confirmed but I think you have some serious blinders on if you still don't think something is up with Trank

You bring up a great point here. Trank was accused of verbally berating Mara to the point of tears. If that wasn't true why would Mara stay silent, when as you mentioned she was very quick to come to Teller's defense.

 

[TheVileOne]

There is a shot in the trailer of a car driving down a field. There's a shot of Johnny Storm working on a car. It is probably him building his home made street racing car.

The shot of Thing dropping from the helicopter is gone. Not sure what that was a part of.

 

[TheVileOne]

You bring up a great point here. Trank was accused of verbally berating Mara to the point of tears. If that wasn't true why would Mara stay silent, when as you mentioned she was very quick to come to Teller's defense.

She's probably silent because its in her best interests. Blow-ups or conflicts on a movie set are hardly a new thing. They probably have NDA's to keep such incidents private. Plus, for Mara this was a big role for her that could potentially open a lot of doors plus bigger paydays. Ideally, actors want certain amount of freedom and financial stability to do like a couple blockbusters and then get to work on more passion or prestige projects for less money in their off time.

Not to mention, if Mara talks about this, it makes EVERYONE look bad. If Mara let something like that get out and spoke honestly, do you really believe a giant CONGLOMERATE does not have within them to hurt her career or make her life miserable?

Also just for another example Tony Stark, there is a notorious story of Stanley Kubrick one of the most respected and celebrated directors of all time being a tyrant on set for The Shining and making Scatman Crothers break down in tears on set.

 

[MadVillainy]

There is a shot in the trailer of a car driving down a field. There's a shot of Johnny Storm working on a car. It is probably him building his home made street racing car.

The shot of Thing dropping from the helicopter is gone. Not sure what that was a part of.

I assume instead of a "ONE YEAR LATER" thing the movie was going to feature a montage of Grimm and the others working for the military and that was in it.

Or was there a montage and they just kept that out. I haven't seen the movie yet.

 

[jfurioso]

Also just for another example Tony Stark, there is a notorious story of Stanley Kubrick one of the most respected and celebrated directors of all time being a tyrant on set for The Shining and making Scatman Crothers break down in tears on set.

Fincher is also reputed to be a very hard taskmaster in his films, making stuntmen do dozens of takes of dangerous scenes and then using the first one in the end.
But if it results in good movies, we consider it part of the cost.

 

[TheVileOne]

Yeah some directors are tyrannical and headcases, but that's also part of their process and yeah that can also lead to good results at times.

James Cameron has in the past has had a reputation for being very tyrannical and a lot of people in Hollywood do not want to work with him as a result. However, there are a lot of people who accept Cameron's tendencies. Cameron by them is simply seen as a perfectionist and it's part of a process. And well, you can't really argue with Cameron's results, can you?

 

[Lencho01]

So, pretty much instead of a consistently bad film, they made a inconsistently bad one?

 

[Random490]

She's probably silent because its in her best interests. Blow-ups or conflicts on a movie set are hardly a new thing. They probably have NDA's to keep such incidents private. Plus, for Mara this was a big role for her that could potentially open a lot of doors plus bigger paydays. Ideally, actors want certain amount of freedom and financial stability to do like a couple blockbusters and then get to work on more passion or prestige projects for less money in their off time.

Not to mention, if Mara talks about this, it makes EVERYONE look bad. If Mara let something like that get out and spoke honestly, do you really believe a giant CONGLOMERATE does not have within them to hurt her career or make her life miserable?

Also just for another example Tony Stark, there is a notorious story of Stanley Kubrick one of the most respected and celebrated directors of all time being a tyrant on set for The Shining and making Scatman Crothers break down in tears on set.

Usually people will let things go for the betterment of their career. And often we won't know about these things until much later when the film made all the money it can and people have cooler heads to discuss it. My point is we don't know exactly what happen, this all came from one rumor that has not been corroborated. Maybe it did happen, maybe he was having a bad day and apologized to Kate Mara, maybe whoever leaked it over-exaggerated, or maybe it happened exactly as reported. The point we don't know for certain and I don't think we should act like it was.

Everything I've seen and heard about this movie just clashes with the Fantastic Four "brand". Tim Story's movies were not great at all, but he knew the material at least, showing the Fantastic Four as celebrities. The franchise should be light hearted and fun, this missed the mark and hopefully Fox just let's the rights slip away or makes a deal with Marvel. I think Fox's best bet is to get some merchandising right's for X-Men in exchange for the Fantastic Four movie rights.

I agree, I liked the first two movies, I feel they more good than bad. And for all their faults they got some things right. Half the cast was great (Evans and Chiklis are easily the best things, Ian Gufford could have been great but the character was written wrong) The basic story and characters were correct, it was just presented poorly. The tone was perfect and the special effects were (for their time) great. And it was made at a time when the superhero genre was still finding it's feet.

Now here's the crazy thing, FOX made the same exact mistake with both franchises. And that mistake is they focused on the wrong things that made other franchises successful and tried to duplicate them. With the first film they changed Doom to be more like Norman Osborn, because Spider-man was so well received and successful. Reed Richards was written to be more like Peter Parker, shy, withdrawn, nerdy instead of dashing super scientist. I believe they cast McMahon as Doom to cross promote NipTuck. They were trying to make the right decision but neglected story quality as a result

Flash forward to now where after the success of the Dark Knight FOX decides the best way to make a profitable franchise is for the movie to be dark, gritty, and a drawn out origin story. What they should have tried to copy was Marvel, specifically how Marvel allowed the character to be just like the comics, to be faithful to the source, and find the right people to make this kind of story. On paper it seems like it should work. You take the material more seriously, you assemble a truly great cast (not just actors from other shows and movies you owned), and director who made a truly interesting and unique super powers film. The thing they didn't understand how the material should be adapted, without good material a great cast can still fail, and the director was not right for the how the material should be handled.

Who wants to bet they'll make the same mistake again, but by trying to copy a different franchise?

 

[Superhero 101]

https://www.yahoo.com/movies/fantastic-four-director-josh-trank-disses-his-126062867512.html