Fantastic Four Has Its Cast and It Is Fantastic

Fox is rebooting this.

After months of rumors, we finally have the cast list for director Josh Trank's Fantastic Four reboot.  They are Miles Teller as Reed Richards, Kate Mara as Sue Storm, Jamie Bell as Ben Grimm and Michael B. Jordan as Johnny Storm.

For years, my favorite Marvel comic book property has been The Fantastic Four.  It was better than Spiderman, better than The Avengers, better than Captain America (well, until Ed Brubaker started writing Cap). I fell in love with the team during Mark Waid's run on the comic and stuck with it through the years, even following the alternative dimension book Ultimate Fantastic Four.

There's some things to unpack in the casting that are obvious.  First, it seems clear based on the age of the actors that they are following the Ultimate team (assuming they are following anything from the comics at all).  Second, Sue and Johnny obviously will not be blood relatives (yes, Michael B. Jordan is black; everybody freak out).  Finally, Trank and the studio decided to go with actors as opposed to, you know, Jessica Alba.

All of this is for the good. All of it.


Marvel purists will hate that this isn't the traditional line up with a middle aged Reed, a maternal looking Sue, and (sigh) a white Johnny.  That last one will make for some hilarious comments on message boards as people twist themselves in knots complaining about the casting while insisting it has nothing to do with race.  Seriously, it will make for some amazing reading over the next few days.

I have one huge concern and one huge hope for the project and they both involve Joss Whedon and The Avengers.

My concern is that Fox is going to use this clearing-the-decks reboot to completely change Fantastic Four into The Avengers-Lite.  If you are a studio chief, it is the easiest, basest instinct to follow.  Make them a team of superheroes who don't get along, but have to unite for the common good.  Marvel is making gobs of money and "me, too!" is the default setting for Hollywood when they see something do well at the box office.

I pray that Fantastic Four does not go that root.  Amongst comic book properties, it is special to me.  It is a book about family.  It's a hopeful comic about exploration and adventure.  For Fox and Trank, it's an opportunity to tear up the superhero playbook and stretch a bit (pun intended).

Which brings me to my hope and that's Joss Whedon.

If you want a template for how to do a modern Fantastic Four, look at every non-Avenger's thing Whedon has done.  Buffy. Angel. Firefly. What are they about? Family.

In the case of those shows, Whedon always focused on the family we find as opposed to the one we are born with.  Blood be damned, Xander was Buffy's big brother and Giles was her dad.

The Fantastic Four reboot can explore the central theme of family without having any family relationships in it.  Johnny doesn't even have to be an adoptive brother.  He can just act like Sue's brother.  We will get it.  Audiences are smarter than they get credit for.

So the big concern comes down to the script.  They need a writer who gets the core of the Fantastic Four.  Who gets that Reed's superpower isn't stretching; it's that he's the smartest guy in the room (and not in an absent-minded way). Who writes a Sue that is both caring and fiercely protective. A Johnny who is completely reckless and utterly devoted. A Ben whose melancholy is only surpassed by his loyalty.

Give me a team of explorers who have each others' back no matter the odds, and I will follow you to the edges of the Negative Zone.

Read More

Updates from the Tundra

As I write this, my home is surrounded by a foot of snow that has been here forever a week.  I'm nestled in my basement, Philadelphia Flyers hoodie providing most of the warmth with the glow of my monitor filling out the rest.

I'm sure you've noticed things at 100 Years have been slow. Make that anemic.  Okay, completely nonexistent.  There are a number of reasons for that. In order of importance, they are:

1. Spending time with my wife and four kids,
2. Spending more time on my actual job that pays the bills, and
3. The 1930s.

For those keeping score, I am up to 1932 (about to start 1933). It's taken me *** months to get from 1930 to 1933.  There are a number of reasons for that (see number 1 and 2 above), but a lot of it comes down to the 1930s kind of sucking.  After the experimentation and the inventiveness of the 1920s, I was jazzed for what the next decade would bring. But the reality is the introduction of sound forced movie technology back a couple of steps and turned every plot into a game of how many sounds can we squeeze into this film.  It's getting better, but I have not been anticipating each movie the way I used to.

So after a couple of months of soul-searching, here is where we are:

• I definitely want/need to keep going with the website.
• I plan on expanding the site to include observations about current film news and releases. This will be a bit of whatever strikes me.  I'm never going to be a movie news site and I'm not planning on becoming a new release review location either.
• The 100 Years project will remain a core component of what I am doing.

I plan on doing a bit of a redesign (nothing drastic as I am computer illiterate) to capture my new direction. For those still following and reading, thanks for your patience.

More to come soon....

Read More