As if the movie wasn’t getting enough bad press, stories of Fantastic Four‘s troubled production is starting to hit news outlets. One tidbit to come from The Hollywood Reporter’s great write-up, is that director Josh Trank was nearly fired from the movie prior to production starting.
“Another source says the notion of firing Trank came up even before the cameras started to roll. But Fox put its faith in him because he had directed the studio’s 2012 found-footage hero movie Chronicle, which grossed $127 million worldwide on a $12 million budget. Based on that, insiders say Fox executives thought they had found an “in-house director,” a young talent who could become another J.J. Abrams. And the studio was trying to shake off its reputation for micro-managing filmmakers. So executives were reluctant to interfere on Fantastic Four despite warnings of trouble.”
Their sources also note that the problems Trank had on-set nearly cost him his job again, but Fox were unwilling to ask someone to come and film the other half of a movie that was already being shot. In the end, Fox brought in Simon Kinberg, Hutch Parker and Drew Goddard to “cobble together” a finale to the movie, which was mostly shot with body doubles for the main actors against a green screen.
THR’s sources also admit that Fox made Fantastic Four, “for all the wrong reasons”, saying they never had a vision for the movie and trusted Trank because he came up with an idea in the last days before the rights would return to Marvel.
SEE ALSO: Fox “remains committed” to Fantastic Four despite poor reception to the reboot
Originally published August 12, 2015. Updated July 2, 2023.
