Josh Trank trashed it, Kate Mara claimed she hadn’t seen it and mocked its box office takings, and Rupert Murdoch blamed it for the under performance of his entire company. Now Toby Kebbell has shared his thoughts on Fantastic Four, and specifically the reaction of the fans to the much-derided superhero reboot.
“I was disappointed, but the fans aren’t wrong,” Kebbell told IGN. “The fans want what they want to see and if they don’t get satisfaction, they let you know. I appreciate that as a performer. My job is to come in and perform as best I can, and hopefully be directed in that path, and I felt like I was. I felt like the film was going to go well. It didn’t turn out that the fans felt that way, so their reaction is honest, I can only appreciate honesty.”
Asked what he took from the film and his role as Doctor Doom, Kebbell replied that: “I don’t know if I learned anything from Doom apart from perhaps when I see something I don’t agree with, to voice that immediately. I think it’s important. As an actor, you’re conscious that your career is at stake with each job, especially on these larger productions. A film like that comes out, and I’m being sent maybe four scripts in a week, and those scripts go to zero when it doesn’t come out successful, so that actively affects my career. I think it’s vitally important that if there’s a problem on set, that it’s voiced and we solve it there and I think that collaboration is very important. Not to say that didn’t happen on set, but the collaboration is vital and if we don’t do that, then we suffer.”
Fantastic Four sees Josh Trank (Chronicle) directing a cast that includes Miles Teller (Whiplash) as Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic, Kate Mara (House of Cards) as Sue Storm/The Invisible Woman, Michael B. Jordan (Fruitvale Station) as Johnny Storm/The Human Torch, Jamie Bell (Nymphomaniac) as Ben Grimm/The Thing, Toby Kebbell (Dawn of the Planet of the Apes) as Doctor Doom, Reg E. Cathey (House of Cards) as Dr. Storm, and Tim Blake Nelson (The Incredible Hulk) as Harvey Elder/Mole Man.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL18yMRIfoszEaHYNDTy5C-cH9Oa2gN5ng&v=qXJL6jGfZhg
Originally published November 8, 2015. Updated April 14, 2018.
