Screenwriter Jeremy Slater Discusses Why The Fantastic Four Was Not So Fantastic

Posted on August 22, 2016

Matt Singer at Screencrush has a very interesting article about what went wrong with the most recent reboot of The Fantastic Four. The film was panned by critics and audiences, and underperformed financially. The cast (Miles Teller, Kate Mara, Jamie Bell and Michael B. Jordan) But the story seemed all over the place, as did the characterizations. Screenwriter Jeremy Slater provided some clues as to what went wrong.

The film was written by Slater, with as assist by director Josh Trank and producer Simon Kinberg. Slater explained that he was brought on to balance out Trank's darker, grittier take on the material. Slater is a long time comics fan who likes a lighter approach to the stories and characters. But Trank really wanted to go dark.

Slater's original script is close to what was eventually made, but with a difference. His entire third act is missing, most likely because it would have been prohibitively expensive to film. Slater said that they still had Annihilus and the Negative Zone (as Planet Zero was called in the comics) he also had a lot more villain action.

He explained, "[W]e had Doctor Doom declaring war against the civilized world, the Mole Man unleashing a 60 foot genetically-engineered monster in downtown Manhattan, a commando raid on the Baxter Foundation, a Saving Private Ryan-style finale pitting our heroes against an army of Doombots in war-torn Latveria, and a post-credit teaser featuring Galactus and the Silver Surfer destroying an entire planet. We had monsters and aliens and Fantasticars and a cute spherical H.E.R.B.I.E. robot that was basically BB-8 two years before BB-8 ever existed. And if you think all of that sounds great...well, yeah, we did, too. The problem was, it would have also been massively, MASSIVELY expensive."

Or it could be that fans were unhappy with Kate Mara's unfortunate wig and the lack of bright blue costumes. In any event, a sequel seems quite unlikely at this point.