If director Josh Trank‘s words are to be believed, his latest superhero movie “Fantastic Four” would’ve been fantastic if it didn’t go through a lot of changes.
The film, which is the 3rd “Fantastic Four” movie distributed by 20th Century Fox, is considered to be a failure by many as it was plagued with bad buzz and negative reviews from critics and audiences.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the movie was already plagued with problems amidst production. Trank was originally attached to direct an upcoming “Star Wars” project before he was fired by Disney. Word has it that Disney fired him upon hearing about his unusual conduct during the making of Fox’s upcoming “Fantastic Four”, which made them change their minds about entrusting the young director with “Star Wars”.
An insider also told THR that the “Chronicles” director was at times “very isolated” and “did not offer clear direction”, adding:
If you’ve got someone who can’t answer questions or who isn’t sure or is in hiding, that’s not good.
On top of his behaviour, it was revealed that there was a conflict between Trank and Simon Kinberg, co-writer and producer for “Fantastic Four”. Kinberg had to step in with producer Hutch Parker to complete the movie, which underwent re-shoots just 3 months before opening.
With all the negative press surrounding the movie, many began to doubt whether or not the film will do well at the box office.
Now, it seems like critics’ and fans’ reactions towards the film have put pressure on Trank, who recently lashed out on Twitter to reveal that the original version of his film would’ve been better than the one that’s out in theatres now. Though he didn’t specially blame any party on how badly received the film was, it’s clear that he’s feeling frustrated with the final product of his efforts.
This tweet was deleted shortly after he posted it:
No one knows how great the original version of his “Fantastic Four” movie was, but it certainly seems like there were a lot of scenes that didn’t make it into the film, including some scenes that were included in the official trailers.
UPDATE (8th August, 1:19pm):
Trank’s behaviour might be erratic, but “Fantastic Four” certainly could have been a great film if the ending was not done sloppily.
And apparently, the movie was certainly going to end well, if 20th Century Fox did not take over the 3rd act from Trank and removed him from the editing room. During Collider Movie Talk, John Campea spilled the beans that multiple sources had informed him that several big set pieces were allegedly pulled by Fox days before Trank began filming “Fantastic Four”. This was perhaps the reason why Trank was upset about his final product as the studio initially agreed to let Trank film his vision of the “Fantastic Four”.
Campea said:
I’ve got a source, fairly close to the production of this film, who had told me that the movie that Josh Trank and Fox had agreed on making — included 3 really big action set pieces.
“3 really big action set pieces”? Well, that has certainly explained the lack of action scenes in the movie.
He also added:
That was all agreed upon, it was part of the flow of the movie. And a movie is like a puzzle, you have all the pieces in place. You start messing with pieces and suddenly the whole puzzle can look out of whack. And they had agreed upon this vision for a film. And days before production began, Fox came in and made him pull 3 main action sequences out of the film. I was also told, the ending of the film was not even Josh Trank’s. At some point they hijacked the editing bay from him. To the point that the editing of the film was done without him.
Listen to John Campea’s comments in the video below:
What do you think about Trank’s frustration towards the negative reviews? If he does release the original un-cut version of “Fantastic Four”, do you think it will be well received? For now, we know “we’ll probably never see it” and that’s the reality.
