2015’s “Fantastic Four” movie by 20th Century Fox and directed by Josh Trank (“Chronicle”) is an infamous disaster. The film was a massive box-office flop and savaged by critics, but there was much drama beyond that. As the film was readying release, and several stories of extensive reshoots had already surfaced, reports were released about Trank himself, his bad behavior, and a runaway trainwreck of production, described as “chaos.”
READ MORE: “It Was Chaos”: More Behind-The-Scenes Tales From ‘Fantastic Four’ Emerge
Reading between the lines of these various behind-the-scenes reports, its seems the producers, namely “X-Men” franchise head Simon Kinberg, were very unhappy with the final product and wrestled control away from Trank and forcing him to make all the changes they wanted and direct the reshoots which frayed his mental state of mind and resolve which lead to outbursts, isolated behavior and a kind of emotional shut down (the drama also led to Trank parting ways with Lucasfilm on his intended “Star Wars” movie).
Days before “Fantastic Four” was released and the damning reports about the filmmaker came out, Trank said on Twitter that he was proud of the version he made, alas, that wasn’t the film being released into theaters (he quickly deleted that tweet, but it was seen the world over). And the final product is a reasonably confident, decent films for two acts, but goes off the rails after a “One year later” time-jump which is said to be where Fox took over.
READ MORE: Josh Trank Is Finally Having Fun With ‘Fantastic Four’s’ Awfulness & It’s Great
Now, nearly four years after its release, Trank—who has been candid about his failures on Twitter in the ensuing years and refreshingly self-deprecating about them—has reviewed “Fantastic Four” on his Letterboxd account as he had promised to do on social media just hours earlier.
“The movie is ALRIGHT. as expecting it to be much worse than it was. I literally haven’t seen it since like two weeks before it came out, and I was in a heavily fucking traumatized state of mind. Why? Eh, save that for another time,” he wrote.
READ MORE: Toby Kebell Praises Josh Trank’s “Much Darker Version” Of ‘Fantastic Four’
He praises the cast and says the performers deserved to be in the two films at war with each other within the final product (his vs. theirs). Then, Trank quickly deviates from anything resembling a normal review and gets into the nitty-gritty of the drama between him and Fox and how that affected the movie.
“What I can tell is there are TWO different movies in one movie competing to be that movie,” he wrote. “Is there a #releasethetrankcut? Doesn’t matter. I’m not Zack Snyder. Zack Snyder is a storied, iconic, legendary filmmaker who has been knocking it out of the fucking park since I was in high school.”
“I was 29 years old, making my 2nd film, in a situation more complicated than anything a 2nd-time filmmaker should’ve walked into,” he continued.
READ MORE: ‘Fantastic Four’: Kevin Feige Says Marvel Studios Is Currently Developing A New Film
Noting that Marvel is developing a new “Fantastic Four” movie, the filmmaker ended with a positive note, hoping that “Ant-Man” director Peyton Reed takes over—as many fans have also prayed for— and “crushes it” (that may be complicated because Reed is scheduled to director “Ant-Man 3” which would delay “Fantastic Four” for several years, and possibly five given timing, schedules, and release dates).
And with that Trank may be finally putting “Fantastic Four” into the past. Next up is the gangster movie “Fonzo” with Tom Hardy which was expected this year, but clearly now delayed until TBD 2020.
