Writer-producer Simon Kinberg was at WonderCon in Anaheim yesterday to talk about the upcoming mutant superhero sequel X-Men: Days of Future Past, but with Fox’s reboot The Fantastic Four due to kick off production this month, he also offered up a few words about the studio and director Josh Trank’s (Chronicle) plans for Marvel’s First Family.
“As Bryan Singer created with the original X-Men movies, Christopher Nolan created with the Dark Knight movies, Jon Favreau and Marvel created with the Iron Man movies, all the best superhero franchises – Sam Raimi did it with with Spider-Man – they create a tone and that is the thing that defines them,” says Kinberg (via HitFix). “It’s not the stories that differentiate them from each other. Sometimes the characterizations aren’t that distinct. It’s that the tone is different and in some ways [that’s because of the] lessons learned from the original ‘Fantastic Four‘ movies, but also because of Josh Trank’s natural instinct for more realism, for more of a dramatic approach to things. This will definitely be a more realistic, a more gritty, grounded telling of The Fantastic Four, no matter what people think about the cast.”
Kinberg went into a bit more depth about the tone during a chat with CraveOnline: “It’s a much more grounded, gritty, realistic movie than the last couple [of Fantastic Four] movies. If I had to say, the tone of it would be somewhere on the spectrum between Spider-Man and Chronicle. The other movies were even further on the spectrum of being goofy and fun than Spider-Man. Raimi Spider-Man, not The Amazing Spider-Man. Josh Trank’s instincts are to be as realistic and grounded and real with this stuff as possible. In many ways I would say it’s definitely more of a drama than comedy. It’s still in the direction of Spider-Man. It’s not like The Dark Knight. And even Chronicle has a lot of fun in it. We’re treating this as the origin of the Fantastic Four so in future movies you’d have them on sort of splashier adventures to some extent but in this one we tried to ground the science as much as possible and make it feel like it could take place in our world before it cantilevers into other worlds.”
So, are you excited about a “realistic, gritty and grounded” take on the Fantastic Four? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below…
The Fantastic Four is set for release on June 19th 2015, with a cast that so far includes Miles Teller (Divergent) as Mr. Fantastic, Kate Mara (House of Cards) as Invisible Woman, Michael B. Jordan (Fruitvale Station) as the Human Torch, Jamie Bell (Nymphomaniac) as The Thing and Toby Kebbell (Dawn of the Planet of the Apes) as Doctor Doom.
Originally published April 20, 2014. Updated November 7, 2019.
