20th Century Fox have been planning to reboot the Fantastic Four franchise for a while but the only development of note was the hiring of Michael Green (co-exec producer of Heroes and Green Lantern co-writer) in late 2009 to write the script.

The success of X-Men: First Class showed audiences are happy to accept different takes on well known superhero properties if they are taken seriously and well made. Fox are now hoping to replicate that success with the Fantastic Four reboot, and Chronicle director Josh Trank may be the one to help them do that.

From Variety:

In a major sign of confidence in his upcoming supervillain pic “Chronicle,” helmer Josh Trank has emerged as the frontrunner to direct 20th Century Fox’s reboot of Marvel’s “Fantastic Four” franchise.

Trank has had several meetings regarding the project, but with his debut feature still three weeks away, insiders tell Variety that Fox is expected to wait to see how “Chronicle” opens over Super Bowl weekend before extending an official offer. That said, Fox is high on “Chronicle” and would like to keep Trank in business with the studio, which has displayed confidence in the pic, offering exclusive footage during the NFL’s wild-card weekend after the pic’s trailer generated massive traffic online.

Internally, studio execs expect Trank to land the coveted helming gig.

Chronicle, shot in a handheld, documentary style ala Cloverfield, focuses on the lives of three Portland teenagers that become exposed to a mysterious substance in the woods, and, as a result, begin to develop incredible powers (remind you of anything?). They work together to hone their skills for fun, until personal and family problems begin to turn them against one another.

As the movie hasn’t been released yet we can’t tell how good Josh Trank is as a director, but Chronicle is an ambition for a first feature film so we’ll give him that. If Chronicle turns out to be a welcomed addition to the superhero genre it’ll be interesting to see what he can do in a similar setting but with 10x the budget. The original Fantastic Four films were a bit light and fluffy in comparison to other superhero entries, so a new take with the gift of hindsight may be worth a watch.

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With Marvel bigger then ever, Superman and Batman back, superheroes were at their highest and surprisingly, they would not stop there, going above and beyond. Unfortunately there are certain steps that must be taken to actually manage to go above and beyond and, like every genre, the bigger they get, the more stinkers you have to shove to the side in order to get to the good stuff. Today we’ll do a bit of digging starting with My Super Ex-Girlfriend from 2006.

My Super Ex-Girlfriend was a comedy that tried to spoof the superhero genre, it wasn’t Elektra bad but it wasn’t good either. So it only made $22.5 million in North America and $60.9 million worldwide. Coincidence that Uma Thurman’s career took a nose dive after this with her only noteworthy appearance in the past 5 years being a very small role in Percy Jackson and the Olympians? I think not.

Next up is Zoom, a movie I had no idea even existed so I’m seriously scraping the bottom here. This came out in August 2006 starring Tim Allen and from the look of the poster it could be another The Incredibles rip-off… or not, I won’t bother looking more into it. Oh, almost forgot, $11.9 million in North America and $12.5 million worldwide (yes, it made only $0.5 million internationally).

Ghost Rider was the first superhero offering of 2007 and after opening with $45 million, it went on to gross $115.8 million in North America and $228.7 million worldwide. This had been a dream project of actor Nicholas Cage for years and from a financial point of view, it performed well enough but quality wise, the movie, well, it kind of sucked. There’s a sequel coming out next year, probably Sony thinking that people forgot the first one.

In May 2007 Spider-Man, the biggest player of them all back then, returned in Spider-Man 3, an overblown sequel that palled in comparison to the first two movies. What makes matters worse is previews made it look like the second coming and everyone was pumped, it was by far the most highly anticipated movie of 2007 and it showed just that opening weekend, scoring a record breaking $151.1 million. In North America it made $336.5 million, so a good deal less then previous entries but the 554.3 million it made internationally, made damn well sure that worldwide, this would become the new superhero box office standard with a whopping $890.7 million. What happened here was Raimi didn’t know if this would end up being his last Spider-Man flick or not, so he went all out, way all out, going overboard one to many times (emo Peter Parker is not something easily forgotten). What ended up as the highest grossing entry in the series would also bring the death of the Tobey Maguire-Sam Raimi Spider-Man in favor of a new take on the superhero, one very bold reboot slated for 2012 and simply called The Amazing Spider-Man. Naturally, this wasn’t a properly that Sony wanted to lose to Marvel anytime soon considering the Spider-Man movies were the top 3 highest grossing superhero flicks at the time.

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, opening in June 2007, was the sequel to the 2004 Fantastic Four. Everyone returned for this and it showed, as it was that same movie we got three years before, just with a bigger budget. While it did make a decent amount of cash, $131.9 million in North America (down from the first one) and $289 million worldwide (also down), it wasn’t worth it to Fox to risk money on a 3rd movie that could have made a lot less. That being said, neither of these flicks were particularly bad, just really really average and sustaining such a franchise for more then 2 entries is not an easy feat. In other words Fox cashed out on Fantastic Four before the eventual hitting of the bottom.

While Fox avoided the bottom, we won’t, because what comes next is Superhero Movie from March 2008, an abomination of epic proportions, on the same level as Elektra and Catwomen. This is the very definition of a BAD movie. This was so bad that it actually tried to spoof movies that were not even out at the time, talk about a lack of ideas. A superhero spoof done right could be comedy gold but this movie doesn’t even deserve the bottom of a latrine. $25.8 million in North America and $71.2 million worldwide makes me really sad knowing that much better movies made a lot less money.

So there’s a saying, if you’re down, you can only go up and with Iron Man, released just 2 months later, we went way up. This movie really blew it out of the park with fantastic reviews (94% on Rotten Tomatoes) and phenomenal success. With $318.4 million in North America and $585.1 million worldwide, this was the movie that started the best summer superheroes have ever had. Not just that, it also relaunched Robert Downey Jr.’s career and put Iron Man on the map, showing the world that it wasn’t just Spider-Man, Batman, Super-Man and X-Men out there. Now that I think about it, there sure is a lot of “MAN” on there. Iron Man was also the first 100% Marvel produced superhero flick, not bad at all for a first try.

Now what Marvel were gearing for with Iron Man was an epic superhero team-up based on The Avengers comics. For that movie to happen, they needed to first introduce the heroes that would be part of that story in their own movies and hopefully, those movies would become hits. They obviously succeeded  with Iron Man and Hulk was next. Now this wasn’t just any Hulk cause you see, back in 2003 we already had a Hulk that didn’t exactly set the world on fire and wasn’t particularly faithful to the comics either. So Marvel tried their luck with something different, a reboot called The Incredible Hulk. Now because this only features the origin story in a few clips during the intro of the movie, it might as well function as a sequel to the 2003 Hulk. Starring Edward Norton, The Incredible Hulk made $134.8 million in North America and $263.4 million worldwide, hardly the level of success Marvel were expecting from the character. Now because I live in the future (not really) I can tell you that in the end, Marvel went with another Hulk for The Avengers, so that makes it three Hulks in just 9 years, crazy, right?

Next part, well, it’s all been leading to this so I might as well get it out of the way, The Dark Knight and also a bunch of other great and not so great movies.

Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.

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Why do we fall? So we can learn to pick ourselves up, this is a lesson Warner learned the hard way with Batman. And yes, that is a direct quote I stole from Batman Begins, and for good reasons. Since we’ll cover 2005 up to 2007, Bats is not the only superhero of old coming back. In this part we see DC Comics showing its teeth after years of nothing (Catwomen is best forgotten), the return of a long lost hero, the end of a trilogy and a bunch of other Marvel properties parading about, trying to look as cool as their bigger brothers, but mostly failing horribly.

Batman Begins was the title that Warner chose for the return of the dark knight. Under the strong hand of Christopher Nolan, who was previously credited for movies like Memento or Insomnia, the new direction of Batman was clear, a darker tale focused on the human side of the hero, exploring his journey, going from a lost man fulled by revenge to the hero that criminals learned to fear by the end of the movie. This was a huge departure from the neon goofy Batman created by Joel Schumacher with Batman Forever and Batman and Robin. Christian Bale was the new Bruce Wayne while Michael Caine was Alfred. It also featured: Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman, Liam Nesson, Katie Holmes and many others. A fantastic cast for the movie that became a turning point for the superhero genre. And yes, it was a critical and commercial success, ok, maybe not the hit it could have been but considering the bad taste left by Batman and Robin only 8 year before, $205.3 million in North America and $372.7 million worldwide on a $150 million budget, was a great start for this new take on Batman. For me personally, this is still the best superhero movie ever made and what makes it so great is the fact that Batman Begins is a genuinely good movie regardless of the genre.

Fantastic Four, another Marvel property turned to the big screen by Fox, followed but didn’t have the same impact as the X-Men movies had. This was a goofy action-adventure superhero flick that made $154.6 million in North America and $330.5 million worldwide. While it didn’t set the world on fire, it was a fun time at the movies so a sequel was green lit soon after.

Sky High, released in the middle of the 2005 summer, was sort of a live-action The Incredibles but without that Pixar magic sprinkled on top. Nevertheless, it was a good movie that got decent reviews all around. Unfortunately, while Sky High grossed $86.3 million worldwide on a $35 million budget, Disney never had the guts to follow it with a sequel.

Now The Mask of Zorro on the other hand, got a sequel but only 7 years later in the form of The Legend of Zorro. Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta-Jones returned along with director Martin Campbell. Unfortunately it was to little to late, the movie was average at best and the magic of the previous entry was gone. The Legend of Zorro only made $142.4 million worldwide (The Mask of Zorro grossed $250 million in 1998) on a $75 million budget. At this point the only way we’ll get Zorro back is in the form of another reboot and with the new-found success of swashbuckling movies (thanks to the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise), we might not be all that far from something like that.

X-Men: The Last Stand opened in May 2006 and was supposed to be the end of the X-Men trilogy. Some unfortunate events happened during production, some involving another movie I will cover today. You see, part of what made X-Men and X2: X-Men United so great was director Bryan Singer. He understood the characters and managed to make something very good of what was essentially a very hard to adapt series. With so many characters, it’s easy to get lost and screw things up. Well Bryan Singer left X-Men: The Last Stand to direct Superman Returns, his longtime dream project. Matthew Vaughn took over, but left weeks before filming was set to begin (later returning to direct X-Men: First Class). The cast and crew were ready, so Fox hired Brett Ratner and threw as much money as possible into X-Men: The Last Stand ($210 million no less) in order to make at least something decent in the very short time they had. What came out wasn’t a bad movie but it wasn’t on the level of the first two either. On the other hand it did become the highest grossing of the series with $234.3 million in North America and $459.3 million worldwide. Financial success doesn’t always equal quality and for X-Men: The Last Stand it was very true. After screwing up the series to the point that a sequel became almost impossible, Fox were left with only two options, reboot or spin-offs. Since everyone was rebooting left and right, they chose spin-offs and in all honestly, it wasn’t such a bad idea.

A few paragraphs back I mentioned that Bryan Singer left X-Men to make his dream project, Superman Returns. After the success Warner had with Batman Begins a year before, one might think they would try to reboot Superman as well but this wasn’t the case here. Superman Returns was a full blown sequel to the Superman movies of old, recapturing the classic feel of the first two in the series (truth be told, it ignored the events of Superman III and IV). While it did make a good amount of money ($200 million in North America and $391 million worldwide), production costs were absurdly high ($270 million budget, most expensive movie at the time, just like the original in 1978) that it was deemed a financial disappointment. Unfortunately this Superman was way to classic for what modern audiences were expecting, not to mention with heroes like Batman, Spider-Man or Wolverine, the man of steel was becoming too old. I personally think it was a good, almost great movie that gets a lot more negative publicity then it should. No sequel followed but a reboot is planned for 2013, more about that at another time.

Superheroes at the box office Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6.

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Fresh on the heels of the “Adrien Brody/Jonathan Rhys Meyers for Reed Richards” rumors, it seems 20th Century Fox’s Fantastic Four reboot has again commanded the attention of the blogosphere with yet another set of rumors – this time regarding a potential director. There’s also the possibility of an A-list star providing the voice for the all-CG version of The Thing that will inhabit the film. Hit the jump to find out who’s being considered.

Comic Book Movie reports that David Yates (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows), Joe Carnahan (The A-Team, Smokin’ Aces), and James McTeigue (V for Vendetta) are in contention for the director’s chair.

I’d take this list as more of a wish list than a group of definite candidates, but with all of the casting rumors flying around, I’d imagine that Fox will announce a director (and possibly confirm some of that cast) sometime very soon. After all, they’re trying to lock the F4 reboot into a 2012 release date, so they better get started on preproduction if they want to meet their deadline.

If I had to choose a director from this list, I’d say give it to Yates. I’ve literally never seen one of his films, but I’d much rather Carnahan spend his time on an A-Team sequel (I quite enjoyed the first one) and McTeigue move on to more interesting projects after his Edgar Allen Poe murder mystery film.

And perhaps the most realistic bit of news also comes from CBM, who claim that Bruce Willis is being sought to provide the voice work for Ben Grimm, aka The Thing. I can totally see this happening; Willis will be busy for a bit shooting Rian Johnson’s Looper and perhaps appearing as a super villain in a sequel to The Expendables, but doing voice work seems like something he might be able to fit into his schedule.

What do you all think? If the director must be one of these three, who would you rather see lead the Fantastic Four into a new era? And what do you think about “Bruno” as the next big Thing?

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My old pals at Screen Rant have scored an exclusive from their sources inside 20th Century Fox, and are reporting that Adrien Brody and Jonathan Rhys Meyers are the studio’s top picks to replace Ioan Gruffudd as group patriarch Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic in the seemingly unnecessary Fantastic Four reboot.

There are also rumors of Alice Eve (She’s Out of My League) and Amber Heard (Drive Angry) as leading lady Sue Storm/The Invisible Woman, and news about how The Thing will differ from previous film incarnations. More after the jump.

To slake your curiosity regarding The Thing, Screen Rant reported a little while back that the largest of the Fantastic Four will be completely CG in this newest installment in the franchise. No rubber suits this time around. They also reveal that the name of the film will not be Fantastic Four Reborn as previously indicated; the replacement title is still unknown, but they seem to have confirmation that the “Reborn” has been dropped.

Michael Green (Green Lantern) is writing the script, and Akiva Goldsman (*shudder*) is producing. No director has been set yet. Fox is targeting a 2012 summer release date.

If this film is actually going to exist, I’d prefer to see Brody as Reed Richards. I haven’t seen Jonathan Rhys Meyers in much, but I was not a fan of his performance in From Paris With Love earlier this year. But looking at the situation through a realistic lens, I’d like to think Brody can pick and choose his projects these days and if he’s going to do a superhero movie, I’d like him to hold out for something more interesting.

Say what you will about the Fantastic Four films, but remember one thing: Chris Evans was actually pretty great as Johnny Storm/The Human Torch. What do you think about Brody or Meyers potentially filling the stretchy shoes of Mr. Fantastic?

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Last month 20th Century Fox hired Hitman and X-Men Origins: Wolverine writer Skip Woods to pen the screenplay for Die Hard 5, and back in September Green Lantern writer Michael Green was brought in to write the script for the Fantastic Four reboot.

Well now according to AICN Fox may have given both films official titles.

Die Hard 24/7 and Fantastic Four Reborn

They aren’t the best of titles, but they get the message across, especially with the Fantastic Four reboot. With words like ‘reborn’ and ‘begins’ you know you’ve got a reboot on your hands.

Following the light and campy films Fox are aiming for a more dark and serious version of Fantastic Four, although it will be more Iron Man than The Dark Knight.

What do you think of the (possible) titles?

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A few years ago before Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer was unleashed upon the world 20th Century Fox were interested in making a Silver Surfer spin-off (Fox love spin-offs), and they hired J. Michael Straczynski to write a script. However after the second FF movie underperformed Fox decided against a third film, and recently we heard that they were rebooting the franchise. So where does that leave the Silver Surfer?

From Collider:

Q: Is your Silver Surfer draft dead?

JMS: What happened was when FF2 didn’t do as well as they hoped it would do, it caused them to call into question a Silver Surfer movie. The script that I wrote picked up right where FF2 left off. So if they do a Silver Surfer film down the road, it’ll have to be its own separate things.

Q: Fans thought the tone wasn’t right. Was yours geared at children?

JMS: It was definitely adult fare. I wanted to tell the origin of the Surfer and get into that whole thing.

Michael Green, who co-wrote Green Lantern, is currently writing the script for the Fantastic Four reboot, so it’ll be a few years before we heard back to the FF universe.

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Two weeks ago we heard that 20th Century Fox are gearing up for a reboot of the Fantastic Four franchise and have hired Michael Green (The Green Lantern, Heroes) to write the script. Usually reboots mean that cast members from the previous films won’t be coming back, however Chris Evans spoke to SHH and said that he might do, depending on the director.

“I think it’s great. I’m sure it’ll be a great movie,” Evans said. “They do that with a lot of movies. Sometimes sooner, sometimes later. ‘Batman,’ ‘Superman,’ ‘Incredible Hulk.’ Sometimes it’s a 10-year gap, sometimes it’s five years, sometimes it’s 20 years. I think there’s room to read just the tone in ‘Fantastic Four’ as it was for ‘Batman. You know, ‘Batman’ took on a very cartoony feel towards the end and even in the beginning. It was a lighter movie, even though it was Tim Burton. It was still a lighter film and the newer Batman’s have just been amazing, so I’m all for good filmmaking. If they can go make a good dark edgy ‘Fantastic Four,’ right on.”

But would he reprise the role? “I guess it would depend,” he added. “I mean I’m never against revisiting, well I guess I should say not yet, I’m never against revisiting genres or character types. If I played a doctor in one movie I wouldn’t be against playing a doctor again if the director was the right director. I think at the end of the day you’ve got to work with the directors. I love movies and good movies come from good directors and like I said since there isn’t this massive surplus of films out there, if a good director offers you a chance to make a good movie, you take it even if you say well I just played a character like that. Who cares? You’re a great director. So if ‘Fantastic Four’ got rebooted and Christopher Nolan was going to direct it and said do you want to play Johnny Storm again, I’d be in those blue f*cking tights.”

In past interviews I’ve read I got the impression that Evans wasn’t that pleased with how the Fantastic Four movies turned out. We’d seen Batman Begins, X-Men, Spider-Man, and he’d ended up in cheesy kids films. If Fox are going to make a total reboot then I don’t think any members of the cast should return, although I do agree with Evans when he says it should be more dark and edgy.

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There was talk of 20th Century Fox rebooting the Fantastic Four franchise in March. Now people have actually been hired to make it happen.

From Variety:

Akiva Goldsman has been hired to oversee the reboot as producer. Michael Green, the co-exec producer of TV’s “Heroes” who co-wrote “Green Lantern,” will write the script for the new “Fantastic Four.”

Fox wouldn’t comment on its plans, but the moves are evidence that Marvel franchises do have enduring lifespans.

The 2005 “Fantastic Four” and 2007 sequel “Rise of the Silver Surfer” were directed by Tim Story and starred Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Chris Evans and Michael Chiklis. Since the deals for the reboot are just getting made, it is unclear if any of them will return.

20th Century Fox have a deal with Marvel which means they have to put the X-Men rights into use otherwise they go back to Marvel after 4 years (hence X-Men Origins: Wolverine, X-Men: First Class), and they have a similar deal with the Fantastic Four rights. Fox had the decision of letting the rights go back to Marvel, or making another movie. Fantastic Four 3 wasn’t worth making, so they’ve gone for the reboot option.

I hope they make the movies more dark and serious. Last time round Fox tried to appeal to the kids and we just got two cheesy movies. I think they’ve learned their lesson.

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Despite the first Fantastic Four film getting a sequel the franchise never set the box office alight the way 20th Century Fox hoped, which meant that a third film received no green light. However, according to IESB Fox may be planning on giving the franchise a reboot.

The two films previously released never really caught on with the fans and the studio is reportedly looking to completely retool, recast and recrew the franchise. This means no Tim Story, no Iaon, no Julian (thank the maker, he never sat well with me as Dr. Doom), no Chris, no Chiklis and no Jessica.

The franchise is looking to be “less bubble gum” this time round following the Iron Man template, which was a complete success in reviews and box office take but a bit darker when it came to its superhero. Iron Man was in no way as dark as The Dark Knight but was funny, action-y as well as a bit on the serious side.

20th Century Fox have a deal with Marvel which means they have to put the X-Men rights into use otherwise they go back to Marvel after 4 years (hence X-Men Origins: Wolverine, X-Men: First Class), so I’m guessing they have a similar deal with the Fantastic Four rights. A third film wouldn’t be worth making so a reboot seems like the only option. However, I think it’s a bit too early yet. The public may have welcomed a Hulk reboot but soon they will notice a pattern with all of the failed first attempts getting a makeover.

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