What tone should this new franchise go for?

[bubbadoom]

The tone of Jack Kirby's stories, it's full of fantastic settings but knows when to be serious.

AMEN! The more Kirby the better! For most of the original run Jack and Stan had the right balance of adventure, humor, soap opera, etc. It WAS the World's Greatest Comic Magazine!

 

[Gabe99]

The Hollywood Reporter:
Why Fox's 'Fantastic Four' Needs to Ignore Its Comic Book Past (Analysis)
Purists may be outraged, but that's fine. There's no way to make a "Fantastic Four" movie that remains faithful to the original comic today.

Let's get the most obvious thing out of the way first: a core cast of Michael B. Jordan, Kate Mara, Jamie Bell and Miles Teller suggests that whatever problems Fox's Fantastic Four reboot might have, the quality of the acting won't be one of them. Unfortunately, that just leaves everything else to worry about.

Fantastic Four has historically proven to be, against all odds, a difficult property to get right. The comic book has been, at best, a mid-level seller for Marvel for decades now, no matter the writers and artists attached -- the most recent series written by New York Times bestseller Matt Fraction ended its run with an estimated 28,000 orders in the U.S. at a time when successful titles sell four times that amount; for comparison, Avengers World #1, the big Avengers release from the same month had 86,000 orders -- and previous attempts to take the team into other media have met with middling critical and commercial success at best.

On the one hand, this shouldn't be the case. The core concept of the characters, as created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in 1961's Fantastic Four #1, is that of a family of adventurers constantly exploring in search of novelty, of new adventures and discoveries. As an engine for stories, that should be almost inexhaustible, with the interpersonal relationships within the group -- a scientist, his girlfriend (later wife), her brother and a curmudgeonly best friend to all three -- balancing out however esoteric and theoretical the "new" McGuffin ends up being. Something for everyone, right?

Except that, in execution, Fantastic Four has consistently been plagued by the very opposite of its concept. While the team search out the new, the concept has become haunted by its past, with every new incarnation of the idea continually compared with Lee and Kirby's original stories and, worse, found wanting.

For comic book fans, the Lee/Kirby Fantastic Four is an almost holy text. Running 102 issues of the monthly comic book (and six accompanying annuals), it was an endlessly inventive comic book that threw out new characters and ideas with a restlessness that seems almost impossible to imagine today. New villains, allies, alien races and alternate dimensions appeared fully-formed each issue, with the series offering a compelling momentum that consistently drove everything forward.

(Whereas Sony has to mine the ranks of villains to build out multiple franchises from its Spider-Man license, the problem Fox faces with expanding Fantastic Four into a series of movie series is more likely to be which concept to choose for exploration. The Silver Surfer? The Kree or Skrulls, a pair of warring alien races? The Inhumans, the Negative Zone, the Microverse? That's saying nothing about such characters as the Black Panther or Adam Warlock, both of which the studio may be able to lay claim to considering their first appearances in issues of Fantastic Four.)

The problem turned out to be, Lee and Kirby did their jobs too well. No-one and nothing that has followed the pair on a Fantastic Four property has managed to come close to matching their invention, nor their wit and verve in execution of the storytelling. Worse still, fans have responded most favorably to versions of the characters that hew closely to the template that Lee and Kirby created. Somehow, without anyone wanting it to happen, the characters who should be about seeking out new frontiers have become a nostalgia act.

It runs counter to everything we've come to expect from super hero films -- especially Fox's super hero output, which differs from Marvel's, Sony's and Warner Bros' in that the studio has started to directly adapt existing comic book storylines outside of origin stories -- but the best chance of true success that the Fantastic Four movie has is to ignore the comic book as much as possible. Take the basic template and the spirit of those first 100-odd issues, but otherwise start afresh and try something new.

Purists may be outraged, but they're already there, complaining about a black Human Torch or an Invisible Woman who's older than the rest of the team. That's fine. There's no way to make a Fantastic Four movie that remains faithful to the original comic today, anyway; the team's original origin centered around the characters trying to beat the Russians into orbit with one character saying "We've got to take that chance… unless we want the Commies to beat us to it!" with worrying sincerity.

We've already seen what a Fantastic Four movie that tries to recreate the comic book is like, in 2005. We've also seen what director Josh Trank can do with superhero tropes when he doesn't have to worry about pre-existing continuity or expectations. The best thing Fox can hope for from the Fantastic Four reboot is that Trank follows his instincts, and doesn't try and give the audience what it thinks it wants.

If nothing else, he's got a cast that can back him up, no matter what.

 

[Crimz]

Horror

 

[Paradox1]

The Hollywood Reporter:
Why Fox's 'Fantastic Four' Needs to Ignore Its Comic Book Past (Analysis)
Purists may be outraged, but that's fine. There's no way to make a "Fantastic Four" movie that remains faithful to the original comic today.

Very good read

 

[SuperT]

That's a pretty interesting read - I do agree with him on the nostalgia factor very much.

 

[Lord]

There actually is, but i guess they're just going to ignore the greatness that is Jack Kirby's run on Fantastic Four. I enjoyed Ultimate FF, i just have a problem with the statement that you can't make a "faithful" film to the heart of the original FF comics, they were creative and crazy, but had something new to comics at the time and often ignored, realism in the characters, not shallow realism that doesn't let you be creative and wants everything edgy and dark nowadays.

I think this one is a better read:

http://zak-site.com/Great-American-Novel/index.html

 

[Rike]

Flame war bait article.

 

[metaphysician]

While cleaving to a fanatically purist take on the Kirby era FF would be a bad idea for a movie ( Hi, I'm the guy who goes around loudly declaiming Jailbait Sue and Useless Sidekick Johnny, how are you today? ), jumping to adapt Ultimate FF isn't the answer.

 

[3dman27]

then may I ask what other choice is there?

 

[Lord]

Acting as if the Kirby run was broken is the big problem in their mindset

 

[Human Torch]

They should just go for broke and make it a full on spoof now.

 

[Willie Lumpkin]

It's not actually a mystery regarding how to update the FF. Talented artists have updated it over the past 50 years and brought them into the present while maintaining the key characteristics that made them work originally.

During that 50 year run, there was one major diversion called Ultimate FF that made changes for the sake of making changes and lost some of the key elements that has made the FF work for 50 years.

Obviously Reed isn't going to smoke a pipe and wear a hat, but you don't need to give Doom goat-legs to make it work for a modern audience.

Throw away Ultimate FF and use the best of everything else and you've some great material on which to base a film. It's not as difficult as some would make it sound.

 

[metaphysician]

then may I ask what other choice is there?

Its called "pragmatic adaptation". You take the source material as your basis, and then change those things that don't work as needed. So, you start with Kirby. . . then you go "hey, Susan comes off horrible. The Byrne era had a much better portrayal for her. Lets see if we can incorporate that". And so on and so forth.

 

[Micromind]

As I have said before (in other thread) writers will pick and choose the best elements from all source material available to them and adapt them.

Fox will keep the tone light-hearted and kid friendly, something that X-men movie lack, they would be targeting the audience who loves TASM and Thor movies.

 

[Micromind]

Every Studio has now realized (except maybe WB. ) that dark and gritty movies need a great script and direction to be successful (not all movies can become SkyFall and TDK), but making entertaining movies that kids and families can enjoy (read full of jokes) will earn them boat loads of money with little effort.

Plus, if kids love the movie it will help them sell Toys, merchandise.

 

[Willie Lumpkin]

Its called "pragmatic adaptation". You take the source material as your basis, and then change those things that don't work as needed. So, you start with Kirby. . . then you go "hey, Susan comes off horrible. The Byrne era had a much better portrayal for her. Lets see if we can incorporate that". And so on and so forth.

As I have said before (in other thread) writers will pick and choose the best elements form all source material available to them and adapt them.

Exactly. People say: "Wait a minute. They can't use Kirby/Lee because look at this panel that shows Reed calling Sue a spoiled child."

Okay . . . so don't use that friggin' scene. That doesn't mean there aren't 1000 other great elements that can be taken from the Kirby/Lee run to be combined with Byrne elements and others.

 

[Lord]

Agreed, aside from Sue i don't see the problem in Jack Kirby's FF comics, there are so many great elements, interactions and stories in there, it's just a waste to discard it.

 

[FeedOnATreeFrog]

Something akin to Chronicle or X-Men 1 sounds good to me.

 

[bubbadoom]

Judging from the announced cast - Total Farce seems to be the way Fox is going...

 

[CyclopsWasRight]

I'd like some more sci-fi elements to to the last F4

 

[3dman27]

AMEN! The more Kirby the better! For most of the original run Jack and Stan had the right balance of adventure, humor, soap opera, etc. It WAS the World's Greatest Comic Magazine!

my sentiments exactly

 

[GREEN =w= DAY]

straight up comedy

 

[Kevin Smith]

There actually is, but i guess they're just going to ignore the greatness that is Jack Kirby's run on Fantastic Four. I enjoyed Ultimate FF, i just have a problem with the statement that you can't make a "faithful" film to the heart of the original FF comics, they were creative and crazy, but had something new to comics at the time and often ignored, realism in the characters, not shallow realism that doesn't let you be creative and wants everything edgy and dark nowadays.

I think this one is a better read:

http://zak-site.com/Great-American-Novel/index.html

Agreed. No one's demanding Sue have a paigeboy hairdo and things like that, things like characterization and story are what need to be kept in tact.


Although a Fantastic Four film that's a period piece would be pretty friggin awesome....worked for First Class, just saying...

 

[Kevin Smith]

Exactly. People say: "Wait a minute. They can't use Kirby/Lee because look at this panel that shows Reed calling Sue a spoiled child."

Okay . . . so don't use that friggin' scene. That doesn't mean there aren't 1000 other great elements that can be taken from the Kirby/Lee run to be combined with Byrne elements and others.

Yes.

 

[Kevin Smith]

It's not actually a mystery regarding how to update the FF. Talented artists have updated it over the past 50 years and brought them into the present while maintaining the key characteristics that made them work originally.

During that 50 year run, there was one major diversion called Ultimate FF that made changes for the sake of making changes and lost some of the key elements that has made the FF work for 50 years.

Obviously Reed isn't going to smoke a pipe and wear a hat, but you don't need to give Doom goat-legs to make it work for a modern audience.

Throw away Ultimate FF and use the best of everything else and you've some great material on which to base a film. It's not as difficult as some would make it sound.