Take this one with a heaping dose of salt, if anything this is a studio wish-list story and the actors a) may not have been contacted yet and b) might not even be interested.
Ioan Gruffudd has done a lot of interesting films, and even been a part of some interesting ensembles, but we’re not going to go out on a limb and say he’s anything but boring as hell. As Reed Richards, the leader of the superteam in “Fantastic Four” and “Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer,” he was dry, dull, and most importantly, sexless, which is a bummer when playing someone who has to be exciting enough to be Jessica Alba’s dream guy.
Fox is looking to avoid that casting misstep for the latest “Fantastic Four” movie, and if the rumors are true, they’ve set their sites a bit higher. The frontrunners for the role in the reboot, according to Screen Rant, are rumored to be the suddenly-ubiquitous Adrien Brody and “The Tudors” star Jonathan Rhys Meyers. Ok, it’s not exactly Avi Arad and company pining for George Clooney, but it’s certainly a step in the right direction if true.
It looks like it will be a full recasting from the previous films, as this rumor come with the news that the Ben Grimm/Thing character in the new film will be entirely CGI, along with the whispers that Alice Eve and Amber Heard have been linked to the Sue Storm/Invisible Woman role. Though, regarding the Eve/Heard rumors, both would be far too young for Brody or Meyers, casting further doubt on any of the chatter regarding this film so far. The new “Fantastic Four” is being penned by the previously-announced Michael Green under the aegis of producer/dreamweaver/cinematic terrorist Akiva Goldsman, but no plot details have been revealed, so casting rumors are all we have to go on, even when they seem as suspicious as this.
If there’s any truth to this, we’ll be curious to see where it goes. Sure, Brody’s name hasn’t exactly boosted the box office of “Splice” and “Predators” this year (and his lead role in Dario Argento’s “Giallo” remains without distribution), but the Oscar winner surely has far more pull than Meyers, who, aside from a couple of seasons on cable TV, remains a mostly unknown face to the general public. It’s likely these aren’t nearly the two finalists, but merely Fox trying to gauge which direction they’ll take: Oscar winner, or mid-level TV actor? Gruffudd was probably the cheapest choice to boost the TV-ish cast for the original films, and it wouldn’t be a surprise to see Fox go in that direction again, as this is a movie being made to secure a license, not to be a riveting, exciting example of skillful blockbuster filmmaking.
Screen Rant also received word that the title will not be “Fantastic Four Reborn,” as previously rumored. The second film had the “Silver Surfer” subtitle, so it’s possible Fox could add another marquee Marvel entity they own to the story to boost fan anticipation, though it has to be someone Marvel has previously licensed to Fox. If some of the minor characters licensed to other studios have already bounced back to Marvel Studios, and Fox and Sony continue producing superhero pictures to retain the properties, are we that far removed from the studios inventing their own villains to keep the heroes busy?
The “Fantastic Four” is always going to be a hard property to adapt, so good luck. No matter who the actors are, it will be all about the tone which so far has been incredibly goofy. It’s hard for modern day audiences to suspend disbelief with a “Fantastic Four” story and depending on how they tackle the tone, it won’t really matter if they have an Oscar winner or not. Our guess is Brody knows better here.
