Please Josh Trank: No Found Footage For Fantastic Four
By Nick Tylwalk
Look, no one is suggesting that Fox shouldn’t do something to shake things up for its upcoming Fantastic Four reboot. In an increasingly crowded super hero movie landscape, it needs something to stand out, especially since the public is going to associate it with the last two FF movies, which were only mildly successful.
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But wow, I’m just not sure if the “found footage” route is the way to go. There are numerous signs that audiences are starting to tire of that gimmick, which makes it seem as if the events in a movie were filmed by random people, perhaps with their smartphones.
Fantastic Four director Josh Trank used it to good effect in his first film about people with super powers, Chronicle. It’s just that what worked in 2012 isn’t necessarily going to play the same way in 2015, especially for a big budget reinvention of a premier super hero franchise.
That’s why it’s distressing to read 20th Century Fox president of production Emma Watts reveal this about Trank’s plans to potentially go back to the found footage well to The Hollywood Reporter:
"It’s Josh, so it can’t not have that feel. That’s his talent, that’s what he does, and that’s what excites him about it."
Respectfully, Ms. Watts, if Trank is as gifted as you feel he is, he should be able to figure out some other way to freshen up the reboot.
I’ll give Trank one out: since Fox has already stated it isn’t planning on having Fantastic Four inhabit the same universe as its X-Men movies, it’s likely going to present the origin of the FF as the first experience the public has with super-powered beings. That being the case, maybe a play on the excellent Kurt Busiek/Alex Ross 1994 series Marvels would work, at least in the sense of getting the “everyman” reaction to people with strange, unexplained abilities.
Please, though, even if that’s going to be the case, let’s not do handheld cameras for the whole thing. I’d like to see Fantastic Four without taking Dramamine first.
(via Moviefone)
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