Fantastic Four International Trailer... Basically more scenes added to the 1st trailer.

Fantastic Four International Trailer

All four leads are fine actors, so this movie has a great chance to be really good, and it won't have to do much to compare favorably to previous efforts.
I sure hope so, the FF is a great team, versatile and led by a genius with greying sideburns like my own, haha.
The Marvel comic series in the 1980's, the classic John Byrne run from issue 232 through around 280 or so remain some of my all-time favorite super-hero tales.

I'm late to this one and I didn't even know who was in the new cast, but the thread with the Jamie Bell Thing photo got me looking it up.

So this is me shaking my head . These actors are all way too young for these parts too start with. Jamie Bell is a fairly puny guy, so envisioning him as becoming the Thing is out there. I have no idea who Mr. Fantastic is played by and Kate Mara is no better than Jessica Alba in the acting department. I also don't know much about the actor playing Johnny Storm, but since he's black and Kate Mara is not, well I can't really remember if they were supposed to be half-siblings or adopted in the comics.

I don't think the previous FF movies were that good, but I really can't see the improvement here.

So after some research, this reboot appears to be loosely based on the Ultimate Fantastic Four, which presents a different origin and a younger version of the characters. I guess I had moved on, because I only know the original version.

I say loosely because they have changed the brother/sister relationship of the Storms and Dr. Doom seems to have been altered even from what appears to have been the Ultimate FF.

I think they just should have left FF at the two movies and either found another hero to work up or do like the Avengers and bring back the FF with a group of heroes.

Miles Teller: See "Whiplash" for how good he is.
Michael B. Jordan: See "Fruitvale Station" for how good he is. Besides, it's hard to tell what color people are when they're on fire.
The Thing will be a cgi character performed by Bell with motion capture. Some people thought Andy Serkis was too tall and handsome to play Gollum, but they worked it out.
The best thing I've seen Kate Mara in was the first season of "American Horror Story" (Murder House). She was pretty creepy in that. The "Invisible Woman" hasn't really had that big a presence in the comics over the years despite a lot of attempts to make her an engaging character. Let's see if Kate (and the
script, of course) can make her, ahem, visible to movie audiences in a way even the fan-favorite Jessica Alba could not.

The FF movies (previous and forthcoming) are somewhat hamstrung by not being able to be tied-in with the Avengers and related character movies from Disney since the property is controlled by a different studio, the mighty FOX.

Sony, as happened with FOX's earlier attempts at Fantastic Four, also made two subpar movies with their recent Spider-Man reboot. The result of this was they just got rid of the "new" Spider-Man and made a deal with Disney to get Spider-Man into the Avengers-related movies as a guest star, while maintaining the rights to solo Spider-Man films. (Spidey is now being re-cast with a 15-16 year old actor and could appear in "Ant-Man" this summer, if not at the end of "Avengers 2" in May.) Sony was in a position of weakness here, having underwhelmed big time with their reboot, so this made bringing Spidey back into the regular (Disney) Marvel Movie Universe possible. Had these two Spider-Man movies with Andrew Garfield been acclaimed mega-hits, it's very unlikely that would have happened. Sony would have been unlikely to do the deal with Disney, as they wouldn't have needed the boost that will now be provided their own Spidey movies as a result of that same deal.

The problem with FF and X-men is that their studio, FOX, doesn't usually like to make deals with Disney, and doesn't need to, being in a position of general strength, having done well with the X-men, if not as well with the previous Fantastic Four series. And that's not to say Disney would even make the same offer to FOX they made to Sony in the first place. Disney likewise wouldn't want to do FOX any favors.

To underscore that, just consider this:
Disney owns the Marvel comic book line, and currently, there is no Fantastic Four comic even being published today. That's right, the cornerstone of the original Marvel Universe from whence all of this sprang, the "Worlds Greatest Comics Magazine" as it was known for the 50+ non-stop years it was published monthly, is not even being produced today because Disney essentially doesn't want to advertise a rival studio's movie with its own comic line.

And that's not the half of it. Another casualty where actual comics are concerned is the venerable and nearly as old as X-Men line. Once a powerhouse, a blazing star in the larger Marvel Comics firmament, with several flagship books and scores of related titles, the X-universe is now a scant few titles with the authors of those told they are to create no new characters for them, as the movie rights for those new characters would immediately become the property of rival FOX as part of the deal they got from Marvel well before Disney came along.

Wolverine himself is actually currently dead in the comics, and as soon as the latest X-Men movie nears release, there will probably be even further reductions, if possible, to the X-Men comics line. Deadpool is to be killed off in the comics so as to not promote FOX's upcoming "Deadpool" movie with Ryan Reynolds, and Gambit will likely follow him into the Marvel comics graveyard as the "Gambit" movie starring Channing Tatum approaches. It will be a rough ride for the X-Men of the comics for good while, at least.

The term "Mutants" belongs to FOX, so to get around that, Marvel (Disney) is going to use the Inhumans and their Terrigen Mists so that they can have what are essentially mutants in their Avengers/Guardians-related movies and on the SHIELD tv series. They are careful with it on "Agents of SHIELD", though, as Marvel plans a big budget "Inhumans" movies and they don't want to dilute the brand too much on a TV series, even SHIELD, in advance of that.

All of this because Marvel, passed around from owner to owner in the 1990s, became so weak as a result of lots of ever-changing (and usually poor) management, that their character rights were sold off to various movie studios. Now that Marvel itself has been swallowed up by Disney, another jewel in Mickey's crown, and is flush with Disney Dollars, they've done a good job of getting back many of the once sold-off film rights to their properties (including Daredevil, and to a degree, Spider-Man), but it will have a much harder time getting back the X-men and the FF, so the true scope of the Marvel comics universe is a long time away, if ever, from ever being captured on the screen in a single movie.

To see them all together, us comic fans will always have our beloved 1980's mega crossover series "Secret Wars" (a series we've since learned was mandated pretty much specifically to sell action figures Marvel had licensed to a toymaker. Sigh. Sometimes, it's better not know this stuff, haha).

As always, it's not really the characters that makes these movies successful or not. It the scripts, the actors, and especially, the bringing of a fresh take to things that have been done many times before that ultimately wins out, as in "Iron Man", "Avengers", "Dark Knight Rises", original "Spider-Man 2", and original "X-men 2", the top 5 of the genre in my book.

If FF is any good, it'll be a hit. If it isn't, it won't be, and FOX will either try again with the same team (as happened the first time) or reboot. As long as they keep making the movies, they'll retain the rights in perpetuity. That's how Marvel got Daredevil back. After their "Daredevil" and "Elektra" twin stinkers, they decided to not make any more for how ever many years it was the contract stipulated until the rights lapsed and automatically were returned to Marvel (Disney).

*click on this link for a handy-dandy pictographic that shows, at a glance, the various studios involved and which characters they currently hold the movie rights to:
http://www.businessinsider.com...-movie-studio-2015-2

This message has been edited. Last edited by: chesspieceface,

Here's my outlook on the controversy of the non-MCU movies and general Superhero movies as a whole. Not an argument or meant to persuade towards my view or anything, just lengthy thoughts I've had on the issue that I've never really had a discussion about. I am certain others will disagree!

I am of the era whose childhood came with the 90s X-Men cartoon, various independent X-Men computer games, The X-Men: Evolution show and the first few X-Movies more or less consecutively, sometimes in tandem. With that came varying, sometimes starkly different, representations of the same characters - Rogue in particular. I don't feel quite so attached to a particular or ideal representation of any character as a result (definitely not with costumes either) and again with the Rogue example, love all of these interpretations. So long as the essence of the character is there I have not personally had an issue with the liberal adaptation of the original comics in their transition to other media. We see countless tv/film adaptations of the same old literature from Jane Austen, Charles Dickens and the like, and inevitably some are more faithful and some deviate from the source material fairly extensively. Take Sherlock Holmes for example, in recent years we've seen what - The Guy Ritchie films, the BBC tv show, 'Elementary', Mr Holmes, and I'm sure other less notable ones such as the film starring Gareth David Lloyd. All have their own ways of adapting the material and for all intents and purposes I'm surprised so many people love the BBC show given its time setting alone. I don't see the appeal to incredibly literal adaptations - where does the excitement lie exactly if most of the story, costumes etc are already well known in advance? There needs to be SOME adaptation for it to still be an engaging movie in my opinion.

I have heard a lot of the bad blood between Marvel and Fox is to do with the rights to space-faring characters that Marvel wish to use but are mostly tied up with Fantastic 4. Not sure this is the sole (or even correct) reason but seeing how the MCU is developing, that doesn't seem to surprise me. Assuming here that Guardians of the Galaxy exists largely just to fill in some of that void or set-up that the F4 may have otherwise facilitated, then given the success and popularity of Guardians, not having immediate access to the F4 wasn't such a bad thing for Marvel, Fox, or the audience. I'd much rather they held some major characters back to keep things fresh and the F4 would be good candidates for that if they were introduced in maybe 15 years time. I'm sure many would disagree on that one though, there are hundreds of stories to be told with the characters they already have but I believe people will get bored of the same few characters (thinking Wolverine precedent) after so long.

[I don't think the X-Men should ever enter the MCU - in a world where people are just born with these amazing gifts, the other characters of the MCU would cease to be less special, and the irrational hatred humans have with mutants, which is a major plot point lets be honest, would seem a bit strange if they openly embrace the existence of Thor and the like.]

With the Fantastic Four, I was 14 when the cheese-tastic Tim Story movie was released, and as more-or-less the epitome of their target audience I actually really loved the film and invariably had a fair amount of the hoards of ToyBiz (owned by Marvel, I believe) action figures released alongside it. I thought the sequel wasn't so hot but my age and tastes had developed a bit more by 2007. I really enjoyed Chronicle, and the new Fant4stic for all its worth seems to be more or less "Chronicle 2" and so I won't deny I find that a very exciting prospect even if it turns out to be a little bit of a rehash. The issues people seem to have with the Human Torch casting seem a little unnecessary and are overshadowing things a bit. As for the cast, I'm in no way familiar with Kate Mara, only aware of Miles Teller from the recent Whiplash acclaim, I saw Michael B Jordan in Chronicle and he was pretty good, and I'm sure Jamie Bell's experience with motion capture from Tin Tin helped land him the job.

People credit X-Men with mixing up the superhero movie paradigm, but it does feel a period of trial-and-error until a more established formula was figured out in the industry in general. I think the current handling of Daredevil will have benefitted enormously through observations from 2003 film. (I'm sure the costume development and the absence of Elektra and Bullseye will have been just a tad inspired) and I have hopes the Fantastic 4 precedent will have been beneficial in a similar way regardless of current studio.

I can understand why Marvel want the rights to all of their properties back but they sold them fairly (I assume) and at times when I'm sure the injection of money was a much needed lifeline for them (I believe), and of course they made a ton through ToyBiz figures and other merchandise for the movies, but to react in the way they seemingly are with the comics is fairly petty, especially in my opinion the creation of new mutants.

That was rather long and I've cut the post down a fair amount. But these are just some observations which I won't pretend are in anyway conclusive.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: rwn410,

Very informative posts from you guys. I am not well versed in the current state of comics, but the studio issues I have read about, without all the details.

My original comments were on the new cast, two actors I could not place and two actors that I would not pick for the roles. I agree with CPF that it will be the script and the film that determines if this movie is a hit, not just the casting. That's exactly why trotting out a pedigree of these actors doesn't impress me, you don't need the Royal Shakespeare Company to play the Fantastic Four. I realize this is a reboot so everything is new, but in terms of the two prior films, I thought the first was OK and the second was pretty bad. I liked the casting of the four actors in those roles, but the scripts were not there.

Now you both brought up Michael B. Jordan, as did I, but I don't regard it as any unnecessary issue. It's just a comment that would have to come up, not because Johnny Storm is now black, but because his sister is not. So you know people are going to say that the family relationship had to have been changed or else both would be black. It really is as simple and meaningless as that, just a fact not an issue.

My post was initially a lot longer to the point I didn't think anyone would read it so I cut a deal of it out, and a comment on the Human Torch/Invisible Woman was one part I shortened. I also removed a long paragraph about my complete love for the movie Chronicle.

I know what you mean Raven, the sibling relationship seems to be an endless hot topic across a lot of websites, some of the movie sites I visit I've just stopped bothering to read comments because they're fairly toxic environments, (not just re: Fant4stic but in general, really) as is YouTube, and it is those that I feel have overshadowed things quite unnecessarily. IIRC it was the Human Torch, played by Michael B Jordan, that was the first casting rumour to come out. I have always very much assumed that Michael was a frontrunner for his good working relationship with director Josh Trank after both working together on Chronicle. The others I would hope were cast for their talent irrespective of appearance too, especially as The Thing is CGI. If the plot doesn't/ever will require the Storms to share both biological parents then it doesn't matter to me. I honestly don't think Jessica Alba and Chris Evans look much alike either.

I never addressed the trailer itself in my first post but the ominous voice feels a bit overkill I think, but it definitely does provide an atmosphere. Also while it does a fantastic job of not giving so much of the plot away (unlike nearly every other film these days) it would have been nice to see a bit more of their powers. I do love the shot of Johnny 'flaming on' down the corridor though. The added 'blurs' of the siblings flying in the international trailer is nice but I'm more curious to see how they've done the elastic stretching and not made it look a bit... slapstick? Not sure that is the word but I have a hard time imagining it in a serious/gritty environment. The bungee-chord element of the costume makes a lot of sense though.

[More off-topic stuff from me again: X-Men, Fantastic 4, and Spider-Man aside, supposedly Universal currently have the rights to Namor. I am very curious to see if anything happens following Aquaman's debut!]

This message has been edited. Last edited by: rwn410,

I see a lot of people online and elsewhere a get a little hung up when characters that were always white in the original comics are cast with black actors in movie or television adaptations. The same was true in the comics when Thor recently was made into a female character.

I don't necessarily think it stems from racism or sexism (and certainly not where you are concerned, Raven), but there is definitely something that those with that bone to pick simply aren't considering.

Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, creators of the Fantastic Four in 1961 probably wouldn't have minded making the Fantastic Four Jewish, like themselves, but that wouldn't have flown in some of early 1960's America, especially down South. To make one black would have been an out and out impossibility in those days. The comic would've never even made it to the racks to be sold, in say, Mississippi, with a black super-hero in living color on each month's cover. Happily, it is no longer that way in 2015 America.

Superman creators Siegel and Shuster might've liked to make Superman Jewish, too, but no one would've bought (least of all, the Publishers) Kentstein in 1938 when they were selling it as there was a lot of anti-Jewish sentiment in 1930's America, so Kent it is.

The point is, the future of these characters now has to do with only one color, and it is green. It is best for anyone who doesn't like these changes, for whatever reason, to remember that, to their owners, Disney, these Marvel characters, beloved in their original forms as they may be to many comic fans, are now simply valuable trademarks for use in the pursuit of profit, and primarily as films, TV shows, and videogames, not even as comic books.

As I mentioned, Fantastic Four is not even being published by Marvel as a comic currently, with Disney, who owns Marvel comics, too, not wanting to essentially promote a movie from another studio. The source material is all but meaningless to the movie studios, besides the ownership they are granted to the characters as a result of it.

Every detail that makes it onscreen with Marvel (and DC) characters from this point on is concerned with profit alone, including all skin color of the actors in the upcoming films and TV shows. In the early 1960s, the dawn of the "Marvel Age", the comic manufacturers simply weren't marketing their product to black people. Now they are, and so are the movies studios, and in a big way. As a result of that, we can definitely expect more changes going forward and not just with race and gender. There are other demographics besides those that the studios will want to entice into seeing their movies, and they will be trying by showing them heroes those groups can better identify with...

What a minute, Thor is a woman!

And WHAT a woman!

Betcha Lady Sif and Jane didn't see that one coming!

Thor, now known as Odinson, became unworthy of lifting his hammer. Reason unknown as yet.
An unknown woman was worthy of lifting it and became Thor. I think her identity is going to be revealed in the next couple of months.

There's a new, longer trailer with a much better look at all four with their powers, and Dr Doom.

Click on the TLR-3 tab, and choose one of the English trailers to avoid the German dubbing

Fant4stic Trailer