We are only two days away from Josh Trank's Fantastic Four reboot dropping into theaters. So now's a good time to remind ourselves of just why we're watching yet another version of the origin story leading to their team up. If you can stomach it, relive the horror of the previous two films below.
Thanks to the brave souls at Screen Junkies, we now have an Honest Trailer for not just the 2005 variant of the origin, but also its 2007 sequel of suckitude, Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer. A pair of films so bad, Fox doesn't want you to see them before the new version hits theaters, the Fantastic Four films are artifacts of a different era of superhero movies. From a time when Marvel Comics threw caution (and the rights to their most profitable super heroes) to the wind, Tim Story was given the unenviable task of creating a movie that took the weirdest superpowers you could think of, and make them believable.
Granted, the new Josh Trank version of Fantastic Four still had its fair share of "controversial" elements, like allegedly turning Doctor Doom into a hacker or casting Michael B. Jordan as The Human Torch. But those are nothing compared to turning Galactus into a world-eating cloud, or the story of Reed Richards, Sue and Johnny Storm, and Ben Grimm into a subpar action comedy. No matter what Josh Trank does in Fox's latest bid to keep another Marvel property "out of Marvel's hands," at the very least it won't include a product placement orgy outside of the X-Games.
Despite all of the problems that Fantastic Four's 2005 film had, there are some things that we can actually give the films credit for. For instance, without Tim Story's Fantastic Four, the thought might have never crossed Joe Johnston and his crew's minds to cast Chris Evans as Captain America. Also, shit on the film as you may, Michael Chiklis was still a pretty awesome Ben "The Thing" Grimm; as he nailed not only the physique, but also the delivery.
So cheer up! Fox is determined not to make the same mistakes as they've previously made, with their gritty reboot of Fantastic Four. If we're lucky, the worst thing that'll happen is they'll make all new and more interesting mistakes this time! And should that day come, Screen Junkies already has the quote you'll be plastering on Photoshopped posters you'll submit to Imgur.
Fantastic Four hopes that fourth time's a charm, as it flies into theaters on Thursday night. And just remember, no matter what happens with the movie, there will at least be an awesome Deadpool trailer hitting our eyes in theaters right before it!
