Monday Morning Quarterback Part I
Fantastic Four's Failure
By BOP Staff
August 11, 2015
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Matthew Huntley: I think a few different factors sealed this Fantastic Four reboot's fate: a) Not many people were fans of the 2005 original or its 2007 sequel. The general consensus was that both movies were too silly, light and stupid and therefore couldn't be taken as seriously as other comic book adaptations. With this in mind, few probably had much reason to give the franchise another try, even though this new version clearly has a darker, more serious tone. b) Speaking of tone, the reboot's is, in fact, darker, and my friend Eric, who's read practically all the FF comics, argued this totally goes against the source material, which may have upset many ardent readers who would have otherwise lined up to see the movie. But with such a tonal change from comic to movie, they probably felt betrayed and simply chose to ignore the movie altogether. c) Fox released it in August, which usually means two things: the studio didn't have much faith in it to begin with (something mass audiences are becoming more and more privy to); and, with few exceptions (e.g.Guardians of the Galaxy), a lot of moviegoers are simply "blockbustered" out at this point in the summer and are looking for other ways to spend their time/money.
Given the way Fantastic Four has performed, I'd be curious to see if it gets some Razzie nominations, which I wouldn't have expected just a week ago.
Ben Gruchow: The financial aspect of this isn't good, although Marvel and Fox can both afford to take a $120 million loss assuming that it bombs overseas, too. But the real significance here is the critical and audience reaction to it. None of the preceding Fantastic Four movies were good, and there have been worse Marvel projects released. Yet there was an elevated temperature around this one that you don't often see; some moviegoers had their knives drawn from the green light, but I wasn't one of them and even I felt it.
I think that it's because Fantastic Four is the absolute clearest example in a while of studio product, even more so than Amazing Spider-Man 2; I think the vitriol from the creative battles between Josh Trank and Fox bled into the parts of the movie that were his, and they clashed fiercely with the absolutely dead cinematic energy of the reshot parts. By the time the atrocious ending came around (and those godawful closing scenes) I basically felt like I'd endured 100 minutes of barely-disguised contempt crossed with anonymous [Comic Book Movie Action Here] cinematic vocabulary. It totally sapped whatever goodwill I'd had toward it.
That's why I think it got the audience reception it did. As far as what went wrong with the movie itself? My hypothesis involves five things that happened in 2012: Avengers proved there was seemingly no end to the market for bright and colorful comic-book movies; Dark Knight Rises proved there was a market for a movie where the titular superhero didn't really show up until the final act; and Amazing Spider-Man proved there was a market for mercenary reboots of 10-year-old franchises (credit Darren Franich from EW for bringing those three factoids to my attention).
Fox, apart from the "X-Men" movies, doesn't have a sterling track record when it comes to shepherding comic-book adaptations, and the list of exec producers for this project is a who's-who of names with very spotty track records; there's Stan Lee and Avi Arad, sure, but there's also Bill Bannerman, he of the Twilight movies and the Percy Jackson sequel, Robert Kulzer of the Resident Evil movies and other Constantin efforts...and for some reason Mark Millar as creative consultant, which for this franchise is kind of like hiring Rob Zombie to direct the next Pixar movie (and given his resume, pushes the idea that Matthew Vaughn was the reshoot director even more into the "absolutely" column).
Anyway, Fox sees these three things succeed, sees that they all had to varying degrees independent, personal directors behind them; Trank's Chronicle turns a big success in 2012, he makes them a pitch for a superhero movie crossed with a Cronenbergian horror flick (which is, by interview records, what he was going for) and Fox greenlights a Fantastic Four reboot with Trank at the wheel and basically tells him to go for it. Then, in 2014, Amazing Spider-Man 2 tanks with audiences and Guardians of the Galaxy blows up on the strength of being snarky and irreverent. Trank delivers a FF story in 2014 that's downbeat, without much action, without much humor; the exec producers get cold feet, flip out, and begin a halfhearted retool of the movie by committee, with the least monetary investment possible. And all of this is broadly obvious, by the way, to just about any industry insider, and therefore the Internet, and therefore the public. I'd say this movie was more or less doomed since then, pun totally intended.
Felix Quinonez: I'm genuinely confused what happened here. I went in expecting Fantastic Four to be something on the level of Elektra but that wasn't the case at all. I found Fantastic Four to be genuinely entertaining and moving. There are glimpses of real greatness throughout but unfortunately it doesn't live up to it, which is genuinely disappointing. But it is nowhere near the disaster people are so excited to call it. I really believe that the non-stop bad buzz and headlines surrounding the production played a huge part in its terrible opening weekend. I think that the toxic buzz created a narrative around the movie's quality so most people already made up their minds before they saw a single frame. I also believe that people went in looking to tear it apart. They saw things that they might have otherwise overlooked, had they been in a more generous mood, as proof that the movie is as bad as they already convinced themselves it was.
But I think a lot of the blame should also be directed it at the studio. It seemed odd to me that they didn't ever really try to contain any of the bad buzz. Instead, they were super secretive, which many people, including me, found strange. So much time passed without them ever releasing any official photos and they held out way longer then studios usually do to release a teaser and trailer. It seemed like they could have done more to shut the haters up instead they didn't say anything and people took that as a confirmation of the movie being terrible. And Josh Trank pretty much coming out and disowning the movie the day before its release was the final nail in the coffin.
Ryan Kyle: Fantastic’s debut doesn’t need a recap, but an autopsy.
It’s interesting that when the film began, the announcement of Josh Trank at the helm (who infamously disowned the final cut on Twitter this weekend) and the casting of young talented actors instead of flavor-of-the-months was met with welcome by the general public. However, when the first footage was shown was when everything fell to shambles.
Audiences hated the final product as much as the director, as you can tell by its C- Cinemascore. To give you an idea how low that is, Pixels earned a B. Hell, even The Gallows managed a higher rating. The word struck fast, as Friday-to-Saturday had a painful 25% drop.
The original incarnation of Fantastic Four grossed $56 million in its opening weekend or about $71 million adjusted for a decade later. 2015’s version will be lucky if it can even cross that line. Overseas might be able to help heal the sting a bit, but none of the cast holds much cache outside of the U.S. so the only sell for the film in those countries will be the much derided visual effects.
Now it’s a waiting game to see how fast Fox erases that summer 2017 date they had penciled in for the sequel. Alas, the studio can take solace in their strong looking fall/winter line-up.
Edwin Davies: The short answer to the question would probably be "basically everything," because seemingly every step of the process turned into a stumble. The production started with a series of strong creative choices: promising young filmmaker who had helmed an acclaimed movie; cast of good actors who aren't marquee names but certainly have some buzz around them; an approach to the material that delineated it from the previous incarnations, which were pretty indifferently received. Along the way, Fox and the producers appeared to lose confidence in Trank and started taking control, in the end making the film something of a mess.
However, a lot of films go through similarly difficult productions and end up being hits. World War Z didn't have the smoothest journey to the screen and its problems were no better hidden than Fantastic Four's were, yet it opened to more than $50 million and finished as a solid win for Paramount. The same is also true of Ant-Man, which went through a similarly difficult production and looks like it will make out okay.
In trying to determine why Fantastic Four ultimately failed, I think that it comes down to a basic assumption on the part of Fox that turned out to be dead wrong. They assumed that audiences were interested in the Fantastic Four, when they are not. Despite being an iconic group and one of the founders of the Marvel brand, they have been eclipsed by Spider-Man, the X-Men, Captain America, and probably even Ant-Man at this point. The name doesn't mean much to most people, and if it does, it's probably associated with films that most people didn't care for. There was a degree of indifference to the film from the start that would only have been overcome if the reviews and word-of-mouth were strong. Those were the factors that ultimately saved Ant-Man, but they were not in place for Fantastic Four. People who might have been on the fence prior to the word getting out decided to hop right off of it and go and see Rogue Nation instead.
Michael Lynderey: When The A-Team opened to $25 million in June 2010, I said that I didn't even think a summer blockbuster action film of that type could open that low, and now Fantastic Four reignites that sentiment exactly. This is almost a worst-case scenario opening, for a film that became this summer's whipping boy for the media, critics, and, ultimately, and inevitably, audiences. We've had many films this summer that likely put an end to their franchises (Ted, Magic Mike, and possibly, for the time being, Terminator). What fate awaits the Fantastic Four is unclear to me, but when we see the team next I think they'll look very different.
By the way, unless Straight Outta Compton (or, uh, Grandma) do it, this August will not have a single film gross over $100 million. The last August not to have a single $100 million grosser was 2000. I've been wondering if that would ever happen again, and it looks like it just might, given what has transpired with Fantastic Four.