Comic-book Movies in the Wrong Hands

Reviews have been slowly trickling in and our worst fears have come true, “Fantastic Four” is an abysmal failure. Yes, perhaps fans and viewers should see the film before giving our trust to the critics, render our own opinion of how disappointing the movie is. But critics are hardly wrong when it comes to flops, and with a RottenTomatoes score below fifty percent, it’s very doubtful that anybody will the see good in this.

     And what a disappointment it is. The cast was top-notch – choosing movie actors with actual talent over small screen nobodies and pretty faces. Plus director Josh Trank appeared to be a fresh-face director ready to make his mark. Now Trank’s career is basically ruined and it’ll be years before fans get a better-than-decent Fantastic Four film, and most likely never with this kind of cast.

    Maybe there is a silver-lining to this dark cloud, or at least advice the studios must take heed from. Specifically Sony, currently ramping up for a third Spider-man series. The movie is still in its infant stage and a release date is a long way away, but it’s already taking a step in the wrong direction by giving the screenwriting duties to John Francis Daley and Johnathon M. Goldstein.

Daley and Goldstein are responsible for the recent flatulent “Vacation” reboot, beaten to death at the box office by “Mission Impossible” and just barely beat “Ant-Man for the second spot. They are also responsible for “The Incredible Burt Wonderstone” that not even Steve Carrell nor Jim Carrey could save. Sure, they wrote the hilarious “Horrible Bosses”, but more of that credit should be given to the A-listers that tried out comedy for a change.
    Yet Davis and Golstein are being trusted to write the Spider-man reboot? After the “Amazing Spider-Man” series was scrapped because the sequel had a lackluster box office (and because Andrew Garfield dissed a Sony executive), how is this any better? The few faults the movies had could be pointed to the hiring of Marc Webb as director, getting the job after the success of romantic comedy “500 Days of Summer”. Webb isn’t a bad director, but obviously the movies were more focused on the character relationships, allowing special effects and action scenes to suffer.

    So how are comedy writers going to do any better for Spider-Man? Sure the industry needs more creative directors and screenwriters to create epic comic book movies, and need to take risks as the available choices are becoming thin. But studios need to think long and hard about who they give control to, because giving the reins to failures or new directors is a recipe for a flop. No other movie proves that more than Fantastic Four.