20th Century Fox has announced the cast for director Josh Trank’s Fantastic Four reboot. If you haven’t heard about it, it’s because they released it the same week that Marvel unleashed the trailer for Guardians of the Galaxy, in a spectacularly failed attempt to steal Marvel’s thunder. Let’s have a look.
Michael B. Jordan as Johnny Storm, aka the Human Torch. We’ve known about this for a while, mainly through the thinly veiled racism of comments insisting that the Human Torch has to be white. “It’s because he and Sue Storm are siblings! How’s that gonna work??” I’m gonna go ahead and say that adoption will play a key role in this plot point. Call me crazy.
I think Jordan is actually pretty good casting. He’s got charisma to spare, which is all the Human Torch really requires, and the last time he worked with Josh Trank was on Chronicle, a movie I loved. He’s got big shoes to fill, though – the last Johnny Storm was Chris Evans, arguably the only good part of Tim Story’s Fantastic Four movies.
Kate Mara as Sue Storm, aka the Invisible Woman. I understand why she was offered the role – she’s a very talented actress whose star is rising thanks to her role on House of Cards. I don’t fully understand why she accepted, though. The Invisible Woman is far and away one of the lamest heroes in Marvel’s canon, and useless to the point that they had to retcon her powers so she could make force fields and shit, which came in handy exactly once, during Civil War. But you can’t blame Mara for wanting to strike while the iron’s hot, and attaching herself to a franchise is a good start.
Miles Teller as Reed Richards, aka Mr. Fantastic. Hollywood has a big ol’ boner for Teller right now, and I can’t wrap my head around why. Maybe it’s because I’ve only seen him in 21 & Over, where he played a thoroughly unlikable Bradley Cooper knockoff. Supposedly he was great in The Spectacular Now, but I’m not gonna watch that for the same reason I’m not gonna watch Doctor Who: I’m not a goddamn moron.
Now obviously Trank & Co are going younger with this cast, but I could totally see Teller pulling off the insecure, wife-beating incarnation of Reed Richards. Look at him. He’s definitely got that frat house date rape vibe down pat. Dude probably wears a fedora in real life.
Jamie Bell as Ben Grimm, aka The Thing. This one isn’t 100% confirmed, but I’m going to go ahead and say that it’s a done deal, so later on I can say that GAMbIT got the scoop. Bell seems like strange casting, but they’re most likely going to do The Thing via motion capture, as opposed to the old approach of stuffing a cranky Michael Chiklis into a cumbersome suit. Bell has mo-cap experience from Tintin, which means this conversation almost certainly took place:
Executive 1: Can we get Andy Serkis?
Executive 2: He told us to fuck ourselves.
Executive 1: What about Doug Jones?
Executive 2: You don’t wanna hear what Doug Jones had to say. Did you see Tintin? That was mo-cap. We could ask Tintin.
Executive 1: Of course I didn’t see Tintin! But get him on the phone anyway. What the fuck do I care, The Thing is just Marvel’s in-house ripoff of the Hulk.
Having Josh Trank at the helm is cause for cautious optimism, but I find myself asking a deeper question: who cares? Who out there is clamoring for a new Fantastic Four movie? No one. Fox is doing this so the rights don’t revert back to Marvel. It’s the same reason Sony rushed a Spider-Man reboot into theaters only five years after their first trilogy concluded. None of these fuckers are willing to play in each others’ sandboxes, which is why the Oscorp building had to be digitally removed from The Avengers, and why we’ll never get a Civil War movie.
Fox will be announcing their casting for Dr. Doom soon. Of course the bad guy is Dr. Doom. The Fantastic Four only has two interesting villains, and they’re not gonna put Galactus in the first movie (because like it or not, this will be a trilogy).
What do you guys think of the casting? Who should play Dr. Doom? And what do you think of my jokes?
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