How Would You Do the Fantastic Four?

[Ajustusdaniel]

So I think I am not alone in being somewhat disappointed by the Fantastic Four (or if you prefer, the Fant4stic) films that have come out so far. With Disney-Marvel Studios-Skynet-Haliburton-Weyland-Yutani talking about adapting it yet again, I'm wondering how you all would go about making a Fantastic Four film, given free rein and a dumptruck full of cash from your mousy overlords.

Who would you cast? What antagonist would you use? What tone would you try to strike for the film? How would you integrate it into the MCU- or would you go rogue and make it a separate project? Would you retell the origin story, or skip past that like the most recent Hulk and Spider-Man fiilms? Focus on telling a done-in-one story or set up for a sequel/trilogy?

[Peelee]

Five words.

[Kitten Champion]

Five words.

Granted that lacks complete context, but could he not have simply moved the truck off the track rather than ruining the train?

As to the topic, it's not hard exactly. Much of the problem with the three movies Fox released was that were chasing the popular Superhero movies from 3-5 years before but without the talent or resources to replicate them. The Tim Storey ones were trying to do Raimi's Spider-Man but cheaper, while the 2015 one was going the gritty Nolan auteur route but with Josh Trank instead... and cheaper, obviously.

Storey's felt like a lame mid-90's sitcom a lot the time and made the Four increasingly insufferable as they bantered with one another, while Trank's Four are just boring non-characters. Neither iteration could be called ambitious or particularly indicative of the stories and characters they were adapted.

So, my version? The broad notes --

Much of the heavy-lifting would be developing the characters and their chemistry. This isn't something I can say how it should be done, you need quality writers and time to work it out as well as actors who gel together on screen. The most important and distinguishing element of it should be that they feel like a family, that's why you make a Fantastic Four movie in the first place.

Secondly, the Fantastic Four aren't meant to fight crime in New York. That's a thing plenty of other heroes have done. They are Doctor Who-esque edge-of-your-imagination explorers who dive into the weird and the trippy because they can. Since this is Disney and they've made Guardians of the Galaxy, Doctor Strange, and Ant-Man, that kind of Kirby-esque bizarre aesthetic is well-within their capacity to create. Go total comic-book fringe science nonsense with them and don't look back.

Lastly - and the one most people here seem to agree upon - don't use Doom. He's a great iconic villain, but he needs a proper setup to feel like he has any weight to him. If you don't do give it to him you'll neuter your future movies for the immediate gain of saying "this movie has Doctor Doom in it" in your trailers. I don't know who you should use, Annihilus, Mole Man, Puppet Master, or Namor even. That slightly depends on the direction you want for an origin story.

The idea Bob Chipman expressed a while ago - he was taking it someone else whom I've forgotten though - of them being displaced from the 1960's is a good one I think, though it has some conceptual overlap with Captain America the last season of Agents of SHIELD. That's still something you could work around though.

You could also work their origins into the Ant Man movie fairly easily... but, again, that's pretty secondary.

[TeChameleon]

Gonna skip the casting, because I'm not good at it even when I'm more than peripherally aware of who the actors even are, but the rest of it?

Done in one, no question. The franchise is tainted, and it needs a hit before anybody will be willing to commit to it.

No origin story. Every time it's been attempted on film, it's gotten dumber. The Four are established, the Baxter Building is up and running, and they're a family of explorers. Might even include Franklin and Valeria, just to drive home the 'family' thing, and also because the Invisible Woman gets some of her best scenes when her kids are endangered (like beating a Lovecraftian monster to death with a large church/small cathedral. Yes, that happened).

As for antagonist? Annihilus. He's got some nerd-cred thanks to the Annihilation Wave storyline, he's got a cool, intimidating design (well, I like it, at least), and a limitless horde of minions for the Four to smack around without any particular guilt. Doctor Doom is by far one of my favourite villains, but he's also been somewhat tainted by the previous movies, and I don't think he'd work as a villain on film until some of the bad taste from the previous (dumb) incarnations has been rinsed out of peoples' mouths.

I'd keep the tone fairly idealistic- the Four are a family, with all the foibles and frailties that implies, but also the strengths and solidarity. The Torch would screw with the Thing, Reed would be an absent-minded hypergenius professor, and Sue would be the one keeping them all grounded. But when it came down to it... if someone actually hurt the Thing? Johnny would roast them. And Reed would get scary-focused if his family was threatened.

Granted, I'd try to avoid the whole Hallmark-channel 'family is the only thing that matters' motif, as it's been done so badly, so often, and it's a questionable motif anyways. But the Fantastic Four as a functioning family with good relationships with one another? It takes work, sure, and they'd get on one anothers' nerves, but it's also an incredible source of strength.

... sorry, bit of a tangent. I hate that Hollywood seems to have some kind of genetically encoded imperative against showing non-dysfunctional families.

May as well tie it into the MCU, I can see it working without too much trouble- maybe just say that the Four got their initial start post-Snap.

Anyways, story-wise, the Fantastic Four would be doing their thing in the opening- maybe a takedown of a smaller threat like Kl'rt the Super-Skrull or the Wizard, who would get away via a dimensional phasing device.

That would provide the final signal that Annihilus needed to lock in on our dimension, his initial awareness coming from the Chitauri's dimensional portals, further hints coming from the Quantum Realm jumping done in the Ant-Man and Endgame movies. Sue, Johnny and Ben would have to hold off the mini-Annihilation Wave from the Baxter Building while Reed spun up his prototype Negative Zone portal, and the Four would head through to try and cut off the Wave at the source, with the climax being a wild, ricocheting duel against Annihilus in the weird floating landscape of the Negative Zone.

Oh. And there would be no Thing angst, no Invisible Woman fanservice, and no losing control of powers. The Fantastic Four are experienced veterans. If there's demand for 'prequel stories', so be it, but meh. We've seen the inexperienced hero thing. Give us an imaginative romp through fantastic landscapes with a well-meaning group of heroes that have strong personalities, but have learned to work together.

[Dire_Flumph]

As an alternative to them coming from the past, if the MCU is doing the Multiverse in Phase 4, they could possibly come from an alternate Earth with a 60's Zeerust super-science style.

They could be following someone from their Earth that escaped into the main MCU (Annihilus or Molecule Man if you want a big threat, or Mole Man or Paste-Pot Pete if you just need an excuse to bring them over) and get stuck. Leave Doom as an implied threat back in their world that they need to get back to. You can always build to him for a later film.

Otherwise, I agree, it wouldn't take much heavy lifting to outdo the last two attempts, but they should be a family and actors should be hired for that chemistry above all else.

[Tvtyrant]

Set them in the late 50s/early 60s, boozy Madmen and James Bond expies make up the world around them instead of the modern MCU. If they have to be tied into the MCU make them part of a past alternate timeline that might be brought in.

The FF invent dimension hopping, causing them to gain powers but also draw the attention of any group that wants free resources or are world recessionists. Namor, Doom, USSR, etc.

[Anteros]

Honestly, I wouldn't. Reed Richards is just an absolutely terrible, story ruining character. He's a terrible person, so intelligent that the average person can't even relate to him, and basically a walking plot device. He has the ability to invent literally anything to solve any problem in minutes. If you introduce him to your universe you're introducing the problem of "why not just have Richards solve it" for every future conflict.

If I absolutely had to make a movie with the Fantastic 4 in it, I would make it from Doom's viewpoint and use Richard as an antagonist.

[Ajustusdaniel]

I agree with the general consensus against using Doom, at least in the first film of a Fantastic Four adaptation. Tease him, if you must, but give the team a chance to get their legs under them before you throw their most iconic villain into the mix (and, for the love of Kirby, don't give him powers in the same event that create the FF! The one thing Doom doesn't have is radiation based superpowers! (Superscience, yes. Sorcery, sure. Weird telepathic body-swapping tricks he picked up from some aliens who found him floating past Jupiter on an asteroid, absolutely. Radiation based superpowers? Nope.)

[McNum]

Doctor Doom needs to be introduced in his own movie, let's be honest. I want to see Doom/Strange in Triumph and Torment on the big screen, if theaters are still a thing at that time.

How to introduce the Fantastic Four, well, they DO like to go exploring. Maybe they just weren't around for the MCU events. Make it so all four got Snapped, and their return would be in part for Reed to find out why he's missing five years all of a sudden. He's going to find the explanation dreadfully boring, and lament he missed Tony Stark turning hero and going slightly mad science.

As for villains, other than fooling Magneto with a wooden gun, and if Doom is off the table, I can really only think of one solid pick that isn't an Avengers level threat: Namor the Sub-Mariner. "But he's not a villain!" you say. Well, depends on the story, but the Fantastic Four are also about the family. And Namor could be a threat to that as well. Atlantis following Wakanda's example and going public, but being much, much less friendly or approachable could work, to the point where someone has to act. Namor could be rather miffed about climate change affecting his oceans or something like that. Make the problem something that can be super-scienced since that's Reed's thing. Plus Atlantis means that both the Human Torch and the Thing are going to be elementally disadvantaged, which again makes it a mind challenge to solve the problem instead of a Clobberin' Time challenge.

But yes, there will be Clobberin' Time. Of course there will.

The post-credits clip will tease DOOM of course. But the twist is, it's his own movie, not a FF sequel.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Frankly, Doom is more in need of an origin movie. So the first movie is that, and you have the Four show up later. Also, it allows you to just have the antagonist of the arc out in the open instead of hiding in the shadows. The question becomes how do you deal with this, which folds into Doom as head of state.

[Mordar]

I think the time for Fantastic Four has mostly passed. We already have the full load of dysfunctional family superhero movies (Avengers covers it already), and "functional family" isn't needed like it was when FF was first presented in the books.

As such, the niche FF fills doesn't need filling now, and the baggage from all of the previous films is significant...so put resources elsewhere.

- M

[Dire_Flumph]

As for villains, other than fooling Magneto with a wooden gun, and if Doom is off the table, I can really only think of one solid pick that isn't an Avengers level threat: Namor the Sub-Mariner. "But he's not a villain!" you say.

What I like about this approach to Namor is that it at least makes it less of a copy to the Aquaman we have on film already.

[Rakaydos]

As far as I'm concerned, The Incredibles did FF better than the source material. I would love to see a Doom origin movie, though.

[McNum]

What I like about this approach to Namor is that it at least makes it less of a copy to the Aquaman we have on film already.

The thing to remember about Namor compared to Aquaman, is that Namor's a jerk. He might side with the Avengers if the threat is big enough, but generally, his interests start and end with Atlantis.

I think the important thing if they do introduce Namor this way is to NOT kill him off. Simply because as the ruler of Atlantis, he's just way too useful in the long run to kill.

Also Atlantis should have a fanfare announcing him based off of this:

[Gallowglass]

So, for me, the defining trait of what I would want in an FF movies is pretty simple:

I don't want a superhero movie. I was an explorer movie.

The FF aren't superheroes. Or at least they shouldn't be. They shouldn't be hanging out in their clubhouse until they get a trouble-alert, then fly off and fight the bad guy who is doing bad things.

They are explorers. There is a wealth of interesting things yet unexplored in the Marvel Universe. (Most just on earth)

Atlantis
Savage Land
Negative Zone
Quantum Realm/Microverse
Moleman's realm/subterranea

A lot of them are straight from the pulp adventure bingo card.

So I want FF to be Journey to the Center of the Earth/20,000 leagues under the sea/Alan Quartermain/Raiders of hte lost ark. i want pulp explorer science fiction.

I don't want to see Doom. At least not right away and not as a straight bad guy vs good guy dropdown, which is what both prior movie attempts gave us. I want the goal of the FF to not be "beat the bad guy" but to achieve some necessary goal toward the exploration theme with the bad guy just being in the way and needing to be overcome or avoided to get there.

In my dream sequence, Doom exists only as a whispered threat in the first several movies, never appearing on screen until the last movie in the sequence. Build up to Doom rather than starting with Doom.

[Scarlet Knight]

Franklin & Valeria? Oh please, Watcher above...no.

Part of the problem is that the FF were first in so many ways but have been cannibalized by the other movies.

Reed is the smartest hero in Marvel, but they pulled that skill to Iron Man. Thing is strong enough to stand with Thor but not to grab him by the ankles like Hulk can. Johnny is the teenager who's got a lot to learn but they gave that to Spiderman. Sue as mother figure and hot babe? Could be empowering to women. Will they push the plot of conflicted love when it has been done already with X-men?

I suggest easing them into other movies. Cameos, perhaps? "There is only one man smart enough to figure out a solution...* dials* Hello Dr. Richards?"

Slip the Human torch into a Spiderman movie? Marvel Team-up, anyone?

Add them to the Ms. Marvel movie?

Or I would bag Avengers 5 and just use whatever plot you had for them for the FF.

[Manga Shoggoth]

As mentioned above, MovieBob (Bob Chipman) did a two-parter on this a few years ago which is worth a look: Part 1: Characters for the FF, Part 2: Plot and Adversaries. And Post-Credits Scene..

Yes, Doom really shouldn't be the bad guy - not for the first movie, at any rate - and it really shouldn't be a big-stakes movie either. The FF is really about family, so a more low-level introduction would be better. The Ant-Man movies pulled the same sort of thing off very well.

As to the origin, well, I'm 50-50 on that. I think you need something rather than diving straight into things, but you don't need to spend a vast amount of the film on it. Detective Pikachu did very well with minimal world-building (not going in to why Pokemon exist, but putting in enough to explain why Rime City exists and how it works).

[Prime32]

Doctor Doom is by far one of my favourite villains, but he's also been somewhat tainted by the previous movies, and I don't think he'd work as a villain on film until some of the bad taste from the previous (dumb) incarnations has been rinsed out of peoples' mouths.

Easiest way to make Doom scary: Institute a rule that if any character starts to quip in Doom's presence, no matter how important they are, he blasts their head off mid-sentence. Their death is instant and ignoble - no chance for dramatic last words, no time for their friends to grieve, no hints that revival is possible (not even in a post-credits scene).

[Peelee]

Easiest way to make Doom scary: Institute a rule that if any character starts to quip in Doom's presence, no matter how important they are, he blasts their head off mid-sentence.

Hey, I might start watching MCU movies if they instituted that!

[Spiderswims]

Well, with the MCU decades old now, you can't really do the Fantastic Four as the "first superheros". Unless you really want to do the bit where they are from the '60's and time travel to 2022 or such.


It can fit in the MCU:

You have the Four: Reed and Sue are both scientists(OR Sue would work great as the senior Human Resources or a doctor), both Ben and Johnny are pilots. This puts them all in the right place: "Central City", and that is perfect for the strong family values of the South. Maybe Texas or Oklahoma work.

They are working on Earths first space ship. Maybe as part of the new SHIELD. The idea is that Earth has gotten or been given enough space tech to make a space ship. And you do the basic plot: There is red tape or funding problems....so the four steal the ship, take off, get hit by the cosmic rays, and crash.

Then you enter the not villain: Mole Man. Not only is he the first FF villain, but he is perfect as it can keep most of the focus on the Four. Mole Man's attack is easy: fracking is destroying his underground kingdom. This also gives a nice tie into to the Eternals as the Deviants made most of the underworld monsters. All the monsters allow for plenty of action, but they do defeat him with diplomacy.

The main focus is all on the Four though, not CGI spam or the villain.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

+1 for a Doom standalone/origin movie. The only FF villain I’m really familiar with other than Doom is Galactus, so I won’t comment on who they should or should not fight for their first outing. Likewise I won’t comment on casting.

Beyond that...pre superpowers I’d probably have them working with SWORD since that’s been hinted to exist, and it gives them a reason to be in space mucking around with superhero stuff in the first place.

I would gradually introduce them with cameos in other MCU movies before getting them a movie of their own. Just something short. ‘Dr. Richards, here is some Plebotinum, please take it off screen.’ ‘Yes, I will take this Plebotinum off screen and do science on it!’ Then the rest of the movie happens, we get to the stinger with Reed and Sue in a lab poking the Plebotinum, maybe there’s a picture of Ben and Johnny on a desk nearby to establish them too. ‘Sue, look, the Plebotinum is doing something! We should take it into space and do more science on it!’ Just enough to establish that they exist and what they do or have been doing - if they don’t start out with powers there’s no need to explain why they didn’t help out with Thanos or anything else.

Then cut to the stinger of the next movie in the timeline, after some time has passed, and ‘Oh no! There was an accident in space, and Reed, Sue, Johnny and Ben are all in critical condition!’ Camera focuses in on some foreshadowing of their powers, end stinger. They’ve had enough movies, regardless of quality, that I think most people watching would have a vague idea how the FF got their powers and what those powers are, no reason to burn a third of a movie on it. And having it mostly off screen means that if one were to decide later that Doom was somehow responsible, or they ran into Galactus while getting empowered or ended up in the Negative Zone or whatever, that could be retconned in without much trouble because the audience never saw it. Add a few flashbacks to tie it in and you’re gold.

Re: the actual plot of their movie...I’m more familiar with the Ultimate incarnations but IIRC wasn’t there a plot in the original where Child Services tried to take their kids away because of all the dangerous superhero stuff they were involved in? That would probably be the B plot (and the B plot of the sequel unless Reed and Sue started out married with kids), but I don’t think the MCU has done that yet - Hawkeye and Antman both had their kids being watched by non-superhero parties and most of the rest don’t have children. Having to juggle ‘keep children out of hands of Child Services’ and ‘keep world from being destroyed’ might make for an interesting conflict.

[Arcane_Secrets]

Might it just look a lot better if it was animated, although obviously that wouldn't fix plot issues?

[The Glyphstone]

I went and fished this head-trailer concept for a Doom solo/origin movie out of an old FF discussion thread, updated it a bit to account for post-Infinity War/Endgame plot advancement.

Spoiler: Coming Soon, from Marvel Studios

Show

Scene: TV news station reporting on '"Revolution in Latveria", background images of riots and soldiers fighting rag-tag rebels.

Scene: Brief flash of a man seen from behind or to the side, in silhouette backlit by a forge, swinging a hammer down. Sound effect of metal striking metal, 'CLANG.'

Voiceover, male filtered to sound mechanical: "Where was the world when the masters' boots bore down upon our necks? Where was its hand when they Vanished, leaving us to rebuild from ashes on our own?”

Scene: More news footage, of a green-cloaked and hooded man giving a speech. Banner text on screen reads 'Charismatic rebel leader speaks'.

Scene: Silhouette in the forge again, another hammer blow. CLANG.

Voiceover: "We turned tragedy into triumph, built an island of peace and strength amid the chaos. And the masters returned, and the world demanded we kneel to them once more. Where were the 'heros' and 'gods' who claimed to fight injustice?”

Scene: Armed rebels smashing down a big gate and swarming over the guards lined up behind it.

Scene: Silhouette in the forge, another hammer blow. CLANG.

Voiceover: "No more. Never again. No man can rule a country and expect it to kneel forever."

Scene: A rebel mob breaking into a huge, palace-like mansion with the green-cloaked and hooded figure at their head. Helicopters swoop in and fire missiles into the crowd, huge explosions of fire sweeping everywhere.

Scene: Man backlit by the forge, hammer blow. CLANG.

Scene: Man waking up in hospital bed, entire face wrapped in bandages except for his eyes. A charred green cloak with hood hangs on a rack nearby.

Voiceover: "No man can be trusted to keep chaos in check."

Scene: Man in the forge, holding up a piece of hot metal with tongs. The light from the forge shows the angular shape of a mask with rectangular eye slits. CLANG.

Scene: Hospital bathroom, the man from earlier is standing in front of a mirror. He starts unwrapping the bandages as the camera pans down to his feet, bandages piling up. He screams in horror, face unseen.

Voiceover: "But disorder must be kept in check. The world must kneel lest chaos return."

Scene: Man, backlit by the forge, takes the hot metal mask and presses it to his face. Nasty sizzling sound.

Scene: The green-cloaked figure stands at a podium, now dressed in armor but with the hood obscuring his face, accompanied by dozens of identical figures.

Voiceover: "The world cannot kneel before a man."

Scene: The main figure looks up, showing the eyes of the man in the hospital now looking through the eye-slits of the mask from the forge, synchronized with the voiceover 'Doom'.

Voiceover: "But the world will kneel...before Doom."

Screen goes black. Big letter D appears, made of metal and lined with rivets, to the same CLANG sound effect. Big letter O appears, CLANG. Big letter O appears, CLANG. Big letter M appears. CLANG. Screen now says DOOM in metal capital letters. One more CLANG accompanies DR. at the top, because the Doom movie is a thing already.

Screen goes blank. [YEAR] appears all at once in rivet-lined metal numbers to a CLANG.

[Rogar Demonblud]

If I'm being really honest, I'd probably set a F4 movie in the late 50s early 60s and make them part of that secret supers history Nick Fury mentioned at the end of Iron Man.

[Tyndmyr]

So I think I am not alone in being somewhat disappointed by the Fantastic Four (or if you prefer, the Fant4stic) films that have come out so far. With Disney-Marvel Studios-Skynet-Haliburton-Weyland-Yutani talking about adapting it yet again, I'm wondering how you all would go about making a Fantastic Four film, given free rein and a dumptruck full of cash from your mousy overlords.

Who would you cast? What antagonist would you use? What tone would you try to strike for the film? How would you integrate it into the MCU- or would you go rogue and make it a separate project? Would you retell the origin story, or skip past that like the most recent Hulk and Spider-Man fiilms? Focus on telling a done-in-one story or set up for a sequel/trilogy?

I wouldn't. I'd make a Dr. Doom story.

Same as how Infinity War couldn't possibly do the story of every single character within it...but it *could* follow Thanos. And by following Thanos's path and telling us his tale, it made for a pretty good movie.

You still have the F4 in there, obviously, because they're relevant to Doom, but this gives you one origin story instead of four, one set of character decisions, and far more actual progress, because honestly, once the F4 get into their tower, they...don't develop much more. Doom ends up going from a college student to running a county, and that could absolutely be spun into an interesting tale.

I want to watch the tale of a man who sees power, the mess the world is in, and decides that he's the tyrant for the job. Someone pissed that every other superhero gets infinite power dropped in their lap, and then does nothing useful with it, and works his way to getting power the hard way.

But for the love of god, don't give us four origin stories bolted to ben moping, followed by an obligatory Dr Doom fight scene.

Edit: I see I'm not alone in this. Exxxcellent. We need more proper supervillain tales.

[The Glyphstone]

That was part of my take above, yeah. Though the other half of the inspiration was thinking that the movie coverage of the Snap only focused on how half the good people in the world got ashed, but half the bad/evil people would have vanished too. A brutal tyrant/dictator and his cronies get Snapped, leaving the people behind to form a new government - then he's back, and the UN/EU/whatever tries to say he's still the rightful authority. Give our Doom a sympathetic angle to keep him as a worthy Villain Protagonist, instead of just a guy who wants power like everyone else.

[Tyndmyr]

Oh yeah, that's a great tale. Gives some legitimate motives to both sides, and fleshes out the world a bit more. I'd definitely watch that.

[The Glyphstone]

Oh yeah, that's a great tale. Gives some legitimate motives to both sides, and fleshes out the world a bit more. I'd definitely watch that.

Could make it even better - it's not called Latveria until Doom takes over, it's called Sokovia. Victor's Doombots are built from the remains of salvaged Ultron drones, and it adds more meat to his enmity towards superpowered people - unless that makes him too similar to Baron Zemo.

Set the bulk of the story during the five-year gap between the Snap and the Blip, as Victor von Doom and his friends/allies work to stabilize the devastated and leaderless nation. Have some minor C-list villain as a rival would-be warlord and primary antagonist, with Doom becoming increasingly cold and ruthless as he forges Latveria. Kick off the third act with the Blip, and the outright revolution as the old leadership tries to take over again. Make it a tragedy, almost Joker-esque; Victor's descent from an idealistic college student to a masked supervillain and tyrant, shedding friends and allies as he does what's necessary.

Sadly, I don't work in Hollywood so this will never see light. But it's fun to brainstorm anyways.

EDIT: And of course a mid-credits stinger. People expect something Fantastic Four related, but instead it's Luke Cage showing up and demanding the money Doom owes him.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

EDIT: And of course a mid-credits stinger. People expect something Fantastic Four related, but instead it's Luke Cage showing up and demanding the money Doom owes him.

Luke was starting to lean super-villain last we saw him. Not quite sure how he’d get to Latveria but hey, it’ll have been at least five years with half the population missing, something could be handwaved.

[The Glyphstone]

Luke was starting to lean super-villain last we saw him. Not quite sure how he’d get to Latveria but hey, it’ll have been at least five years with half the population missing, something could be handwaved.

The details wouldn't need to matter, it'd just be an easter egg joke for people who get the reference. Maybe he shows up in the Fantasticar, and that's the oblique F4 reference without throwing it in our faces.