Marvel Comic geeks- Why were the Fantastic 4 films sooooo silly?!

Cafe Society
1

Ok, so I’m a little late to the party. My TiVo recently recorded the second one, Silver Surfer, and I perused thru it mostly on FF and was amazed that, much like the first one, it wasn’t simply a bad movie, it was, ah, incredibly stupid. Or rather incredibly juvenile, as though the studio made a conscious decision that the target audience was going to be boys 12 and under.

Thing is, this film came out in 2007, after The Incredible Hulk reboot and the first Iron Man, two films that while not quite my cup of tea at least had some semblance of wanting to be more than just live action cartoons. Both actually, along with having comic book fun, also had fairly decent stories and performances. Same goes for the sequels. But F4 never even tried!

I’ve learned how *Spiderman *wasn’t part of the ‘Avengers’ film universe because Sony owns it. Is the same true of F4? Or were they simply separate comic worlds to begin with? Even so, much as Warner brought Batman back from Schumacher silliness with the Nolan trilogy, it seemed to me that Marvel wanted to do much the same with their films, make them fun but reasonably enjoyable for adults too (and they succeeded). So why were the F4 films so silly?

2

Ummm, Iron Man and the Hulk reboot came out in 2008.

3

In the comic book world, all of these characters exist in a single shared universe. So yes, the Fantastic Four, Spider-man, and the Avengers could all get together and play cards if they wanted. Almost every year the company publishes at least one series that involves all of these characters coming together in a giant battle.

The problem is translating this same dynamic to the screen. The common industry practice has been to sell the “rights” to make a movie based on a certain character or intellectual property. As you have observed, Sony owns the rights to Spider-man, Fox owns the rights to Fantastic Four, etc. These contracts inevitably have an exclusivity clause. Since Fox paid Marvel for the right to make an FF movie, Sony should not be able to make an FF movie (or include FF characters) and piggyback off Fox’s success.

As I’m sure you know, the reason the “Avengers” is such a big deal is that it bucked industry convention. Marvel retained the rights to these characters and, as such, can allow them to have cross-overs or cameos in each other’s movies.

This also leads to some interesting speculation… For example, Marvel sold the film rights to the Punisher to Lion’s Gate. However, they recently bought those rights back (essentially, they paid a fine in order to break their contract with Lion’s Gate). This implies (A) Marvel wants to make more Punisher movies and (B) the Punisher could conceivably appear in the ongoing “Avengers” series.

Now, that’s all well and good as an explanation of how intellectual property rights work, but I still haven’t answered your main question.

As to why the FF films sucked, all I can say is nobody knows. There are a thousand reasons a film could tank, but most of them revolve around getting a committee of people who want to publish something aimed at the lowest common denominator. If anyone could identify a single reason why films fail, then it could be repaired and every movie would be a hit.

Look at the recent “John Carter” movie. They had a property that was considered an enduring classic, a director who bats a thousand, and one of the most experienced and wealthy film companies to give it an unlimited budget. And yet it was one of the most disastrous movies of all time. You can point to various flaws, but nobody can nail down one single reason the movie failed.

Seen through this lens, maybe Marvel’s decision to buy back the “Punisher” rights was in an of itself punishment for the studio for making awful movies.

4

Couldn’t it just be that they figured:
with all the various new film series from superhero comics, might as well have one aimed at kids? Y’know, just as a marketing decision?

The Nolan Batman movies aren’t really kid-friendly.
The Marvel Universe movies kinda vacillate from one side to the other crossing the line of what’s kid-friendly. The films certainly aren’t for younger kids by the standards of very many parents.
I’d say the same for the X-Men movies.

The Spiderman Trilogy was pretty much family-fare, the reboot is just a blur in my memory so I don’t know what to say about that one.

But the market has pretty much been flooded with superhero movies aimed at adults. At some point, it becomes smarter to aim for a different audience outside the sea of competition.

Speaking as someone who’s never read the comics and generally not a comic book person at all, I don’t think I could ever accept The Thing in an adult oriented movie. He’s just too silly looking.

5

The Fantastic Four are unique in that they’re a superhero family, and throughout their publication the ‘quirky family’ angle has often been mixed in with superheroics. Depending on which era you look at, they often mixed lighter fare with the more serious stuff.

The movies were attempting to do the same, except poorly. The Incredibles borrowed from FF comics and got that mix well. I think the FF movies then tried to borrow from the borrowers by filming a live action Incredibles.

They’re rebooting the franchise with the director of Chronicle and early indications seem to be that it’s being handled more competently.

6

Poor decision making, plus the misfortune of following The Incredibles into the theater. The Brad Bird- directed PIXAR feature had a family foursome
featuring a Big Strong character, one who could stretch, and invisible girl who could project force fields, and an edgy young kid who went solo. The super-science villain had an exotic and high-tech lair filled with murderous minions. They did it first, and better than the FF movie would. The Fantastic Four were bound to look like poor imitations.

Of course, it didn’t help that they were poor imitations. They changed Doctor Doom’s origin to something stupid and goofy. They spent too much time in explanations, and not enough on characterization. And the imagery never even approached the ciosmic awesomeness that Jack Kirby managed after the comic hit its stride (roughloy issues 30 to 100). I’ve heard that they added scenes after the success of The Incredibles to show off the superhheroes and their superpowers more. If true, there’s a big part of the failure right there – that should’ve been there in the first place.

You had some of the Ben Grimm-Johnny Storm bickering, but not enough. Reed and Sue were practically ciphers. And if Dr. Doom isn’t the embodiment of pompous, postyuring, bombastic villaindom, then what’s he doing there? They stole most of his costuime for Darth Vader – Doom should’ve been at least as impressive or memorable.

The second movie, with the Silver Surfer and Galactus, should’ve really been the embodiment of Kirby Cosmic Awesomeness. Changing Galactus into a big evil fluffy cloud (as [iWatchmen* changed the Big Squid into a manifestation of Dr. Manhattan’s power – although that was handled far better) was a REALLY bad idea. Dammit – we should’ve had a Cosmic Nullifier!

Yes they can – lots of people have pointed it out – the Disney chief made a conscious decision not to publicize the movie. Then he wrote the film off after it had been in theaters only two weeks. There were lots of other contributing factors, but that’s the biggest one right there. Plenty of websites and one book (John Carter and the Gods of Hollywood) back that up.

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They screwed up with Dr. Doom. Magnetic powers, cloven hooves and an outfit that doesn’t look anything like the Latverian monarch known to fans for 50 years. That’s another thing-there was nothing Eastern European about the Doom played by Julian McMahon.

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That’s awesome news!

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At least when they jumped the shark, they could do it in a Dodge flying car with a Hemi®.

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Yes. The first. . . neither movie had a decent villain. Dr Doom and Galactus (or the lack of) were MAJOR disappointments.

And, concerning the Silver Surfer. . . it’s a pretty silly hero concept. A naked silver guy that flies on a surf board. . . when I first saw reprints of those issues, when I was 8, I thought it was silly. I read them, and found out that he’s a great character and those FF and Silver Surfer issues are really great, but, unless you execute the story right, it’s gonna look silly.

11
  1. Don’t screw with the origin. Four people, one spaceship, one dose of cosmic rays. Doom has his own separate origin(which is rich enough to be entirely an separate movie, perhaps FF2.)
  2. Make The Thing bigger and craggier.
12

It was bad because all movies are bad, unless they have a reason they’re good. In the case at hand, the movie didn’t have a good director and didn’t have a good script; the cast was largely nondescript, and the design and effects were unimaginative. Thus, it was bad.

I think we should stop asking why some movies don’t work and start asking why some movies do.

13

I think another of the problems of The Fantastic Four vs. The Incredibles is that some super powers look stupid outside a comic book universe. Thus ElastiGirl fits in an animated universe while Mr. Fantastic looks silly in live action.

Another issue is that there was no sense of playfulness in tFF. The sequence in The Incredibles where Dash is being chased thru the island by Syndrome’s evil henchmen was great fun, because Dash was discovering how cool it was to use his powers to the fullest. He didn’t know, for instance, that he could run over water. In The Fantastic Four, Reed Richards was all grim-faced and serious, Sue Storm was just eye candy, the Thing was pissed off because he was the Thing, and Johnny Storm was the only one enjoying himself, and everyone else ragged on him for doing so.

Many of the other comic book movies which suceeded, did so in part because of that sense of play. The first Spider-Man movie worked when Spider-Man was out reveling in web-slinging - he felt like Peter Pan flying, and it came across. The first Batman movie worked because of the Joker’s famous line - “Where does he get all those wonderful toys?” They were toys, and both Batman and the Joker were arrested adolescents at play.

We just re-watched The Avengers last night. Same sense of play, especially in the early sequence where the Black Widow is being interrogated by the Evil Russki, and then she gets a call on her cell. “I’m working right now!” Same thing where Hawkeye is shooting the bad guys with his magic bow, but not even looking at them.

People read comic books because they like to imagine how cool it would be to fly, or have super-strength, or whatever. A movie where that’s not fun, isn’t fun.

Regards,
Shodan

14

QFT.

FF failed because they had the wrong everything.

15

The “cosmic god” art style does not translate well to real life, see for example Galactus. I understand fully why they were so unsure they changed it to a cloud.

Hell look at the Thor movie, they had to change a lot and even then some goofiness remained.

16

The first Hulk movie made $245 million on a $137 million budget; the reboot, $263 million on a $150 million budget; that’s not tripling one’s budget, or even doubling one’s budget; it’s a miserable failure.

The first Fantastic Four movie made $330 million on a $100 million budget; its sequel made $289 million on a $130 million budget; that’s plenty more than “tripling” and “doubling,” respectively. So it’s perfectly understandable to go with an approach that costs less and makes more than puny Banner.

I know going in that I could fail to double the budget with a serious-minded project like Superman Returns or a Hellboy – and in years to come I’ll see people fail to double their budgets with projects like Watchmen and Green Lantern. But (a) I’m out to make a buck, and (b) I could do a lot worse.

17

Cut rate and B grade everything. It was already Doomed with a piss-poor script and the director of Barbershop. And yeah, the guy that directed Elf made a fantastic Iron Man movie, but the odds were stacked aginst that sort of thing.

Mr. Fantastic used his superpowers to reach for a roll of toilet paper. Plus everything else mentioned up-thread.

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In the age of CGI, “cosmic” can be done very well in cinema. You can even do a humanoid Cosmic God – look mat Dr. Manhattan. You’d be advised, though, not to use a human actor. And don’t use cheap CGI, as the remake vof Day the Earth Stood Still did with Gort. And, for Galactus’ sake, don’t turn him into a cloud, and show a Long Shot of him engulfing the earth – that doesn’t make the cloud look big; it makes the Earth look small.

Yes, I do think they could have done Galactus on the Big Screen and make it work; They didn’t.
And choosing the “Dr. Doom vs. the Silver Surfer” from FF #57-8 instead of the Galactus trilogy was a bad idea.
And if you did, you should made it Cosmic, with lots of Kirby dots:

19

Personally, I didn’t think the FF movies sucked but some serious script doctoring was needed for the first third of the first film. The Victor/Sue/Reed love triangle was an unnecessary element, I’d guess forced into the script by someone who thought a comic-book movie didn’t have enough opportunities for conflict.

20

Just casting anyone other than Jessica Alba as the Invisible Girl would be handling it more competently.