The Fantastic Four Cast Is Mostly Set

Count me among the people not clamoring for a reboot of the “Fantastic Four” film franchise, at least not at 20th Century Fox. I found their previous two FF films to be just okay, treating the titular super hero family fairly well. That portrayal of Doctor Doom though …

Anyway, there was never much doubt that Fox would take another crack at the Fantastic Four, seeing as super hero movies are big business and the right swould revert to Marvel at some point if they didn’t. Helmed by Josh Trank, the new film is targeting a June 19, 2015 release date and is said to be set in the same universe as Fox’s X-Men flicks. That’s one good choice, at least.

The decision to base the script on “Ultimate Fantastic Four” is slightly more questionable since, well, Reed Richards ends up as a bad guy in that world. It does explain why the cast is younger, as you’ll see as we dig into who’s playing who.

• Miles Teller as Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic – Teller’s claim to fame thus far was starring in “The Spectacular Now,” for which he won an award last year at the Sundance Film Festival. His roles in “Project X” and “21 & Over” were comedic ones, so it should be interesting seeing him tackle Marvel’s stretchable brain (literally, in the Ultimate universe).
• Kate Mara as Sue Storm/Invisible Woman – While Mara has been in quite a few movies over the past 15 years, you may know her from TV since she was on “American Horror Story” and currently can be seen on “House of Cards.” She’s also part of the cast of “Transcendence,” the Johnny Depp-starring sci-fi film coming out this spring, and she’s related to the ownership of both the New York Giants and Pittsburgh Steelers.
• Michael B. Jordan as Johnny Storm/Human Torch – You may have heard there was a bit of a flap about this casting decision for a reason I won’t dignify by going into. Jordan has a well-rounded resume that includes TV, movies and some voice work for video games. He’s got comic book cred already since he voiced Cyborg in one of DC’s animated movies.
• Jamie Bell as Ben Grimm/The Thing – Perhaps the most interesting member of the cast, Bell hails from England and has been nominated or won a host of acting awards in his native country. You caertainly can’t pigeonhole his movie roles since he was just in Lars von Trier’s “Nymphomaniac.” Bell doesn’t scream out Ben Grimm the way Michael Chiklis did, but that could make his transformation that much more dramatic.

So what are we missing? How about a villain? No word yet on who the main antagonist might be, though you can count on Dr. Doom being involved in some way, shape or form. Spinoff Online takes five stabs on what we might see, though two of them are still Doom! As long as he’s not a guy turning into metal with electrical powers, please.

————————–

Bam Smack Pow needs you! If you’ve always wanted to write about anything related to comic book super heroes, this is your big chance. We’re looking for writers to cover anything that features super heroes: movies, TV, cartoons, video games, toys, cosplay, and of course, comics. Experience is helpful, but passion is the biggest prerequisite. The positions are unpaid, but your work will be exposed to the whole Fansided network and its monthly audience of millions. If you want to join us on this journey, contact Nick Tylwalk at nick.tylwalk@fansided.com or follow our Twitter feed @bamsmackpow.