It’s been one year since the reboot of “Fantastic Four” hit theaters, and say what you will about “Suicide Squad,” but 20th Century Fox‘s flop was easily the more embattled picture. Long before it even arrived at the multiplex the rumors of an ugly rift between the studio and director Josh Trank were already out there, and the movie earned a pitiful $167 million worldwide (approximately $30 million more than “Suicide Squad” earned domestically in its first weekend). However, like “Suicide Squad,” there has been much talk about what could’ve been with “Fantastic Four,” with Toby Kebell saying earlier this year that director Trank had a “much darker version” that will never see the light of day.
Meanwhile, the film’s first screenwriter, Jeremy Slater, has been quite vocal that the finished film — on which he retains a screenplay credit — is nearly void of his contributions, and he asserts that again in a new chat with ScreenCrush. He says he worked on “10-15 drafts … over a six month period” for the movie, and that essentially he was replaced. It seems that he and Trank weren’t really coming from the same place in terms of tone — the director wanted something gritty and realistic, but Slater leaned toward razzle dazzle — and the screenwriter seems fine with all of it, noting that multiple screenwriters on blockbusters is pretty common. However, it is interesting to note that Slater says the finished film is essentially the first half of the story he drafted, which went to some epic places, saying:
In addition to Annihilus and the Negative Zone, we had Doctor Doom declaring war against the civilized world, the Mole Man unleashing a 60 foot genetically-engineered monster in downtown Manhattan, a commando raid on the Baxter Foundation, a Saving Private Ryan-style finale pitting our heroes against an army of Doombots in war-torn Latveria, and a post-credit teaser featuring Galactus and the Silver Surfer destroying an entire planet. We had monsters and aliens and Fantasticars and a cute spherical H.E.R.B.I.E. robot that was basically BB-8 two years before BB-8 ever existed. And if you think all of that sounds great…well, yeah, we did, too. The problem was, it would have also been massively, MASSIVELY expensive.
This is fascinating to know, because if you recall, the Fantasticar was spotted in B-roll footage of the film, while these other sequences suggests penny pinching, 20th Century Fox (who continually slashed the budget of “Fantastic Four”) may have decided they weren’t worth the effort (don’t forget, a big action sequence with The Thing was cut as well). But the blame isn’t entirely at Fox’s feet, because as Slater notes, Trank himself wasn’t happy with the script early on and certainly had some say in the narrative direction.
There’s still been no official word from Trank about the production, other than since deleted tweet that said the studio messed with his movie. But the making of this movie — or in some ways, the unmaking — continues to fascinate so hopefully we’ll get to hear his side of it someday.