Fantastic Four should ride the Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse wave
By Mark Lynch
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse proves a Fantastic Four movie, or any other Marvel movie, doesn’t need to be live action.
The Fantastic Four franchise has been infamously known for having bad movies. The first couple of movies had a good cast, but Dr. Doom was cast poorly. Fun flicks, but not great. The most recent project was just awful. A lot of blame has been put on Johnny Storm being played by Michael B. Jordan. However, if the movie was actually good, everyone would have looked past the casting. This isn’t like the X-Men franchise, where people take two or three bad movies out of nine and call it a failure. Since the Fantastic Four hasn’t been popular as a live-action feature, maybe it’s time to ride the momentum that Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse recently started. Adapt the Fantastic Four into an animated movie.
Image Source: Marvel Digital Comics
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse was a success at the box office, and it also won a Golden Globe and an Oscar. Comic book movies don’t win big-time awards, and the animated film category is usually dominated by Disney/Pixar. Into the Spider-Verse proved that these movies can be a success. This proves that there’s room for comic book movies at the box office. There are a few things that Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse did that will help the Fantastic Four if an animated feature is produced.
Image Source: Marvel Digital Comics
Avoiding the origin story in length
The story of how the Fantastic Four gained their powers is well documented. It may not have been told as many times as Batman or Superman’s, but Marvel’s First Family has been around for over 50 years. Their origin is easy to Google. Even though Spider-Man’s story is well known, Into the Spider-Verse did an amazing job of telling it without wasting too much time. This meant that there were more original moments to see. The 10 to 20 minutes spent going through how the Fantastic Four meet and how they got their powers could be used on new content. Even though their beginning has to be told, it’s simple enough to be told in the opening credits or in a brief vignette. No need to beat the dead cosmic rays that gave them their powers. Get in, get out.
Image Source: Marvel Digital Comics
Cool Animation
One of the most creative things about Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse was the animation. It looked like a combination of a comic book and a trippy hallucination. The colors popped and made it difficult to look away from the screen. The thought bubbles and random comic books were a nice added touch, as well. The Fantastic Four are known for having villains that are extraordinarily larger than life personalities and powers. Dr. Doom, Galactus, and Annihilus are just a few of the antagonists that the Fantastic Four can battle. Their villains also bring up one more great point about making their film animated…
Credit Marvel Comics
Animated movies allows for more action
More from Movies
- James Gunn’s Superman: Legacy casts more major DC characters
- New Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom trailer pushes Arthur to his limits
- 7 actors who could replace Ezra Miller as The Flash in the DC Universe
- Masters of the Universe reboot’s new domain could be at Amazon’s Prime Video Streamer
- James Gunn gives interesting update of Superman and Supergirl movies at DC Studios
One of the downfalls to live action movies is that they’re restricted by the things that can be done. Even if scenes have CGI with the live-action, they run the risk of looking cheesy and cheap. Animated movies don’t have this problem. The restrictions are only limited to the artists imagination. We could see a full on battle between Dr. Doom and Reed that could put every other action scene to shame. The Mole Man’s creatures could look anywhere from cute to downright scary. Then we get into the cosmic beings like Silver Surfer or unexplored places like the Negative Zone. The visuals used for that location could be amazing. Just look at the final fight scene in Into the Spider-Verse. All of the colors and jumping around was phenomenal.
Next. Captain Marvel: What does the future hold for the Skrulls?. dark
It’s a shame we haven’t had a Fantastic Four movie that’s blown people away. Everything about them screams popular. They may be old fashioned, but they have four fantastic elements to make a great project: fantastic heroes, villains, storylines, and potential.