Gatsby77

Wow...really? I thought the film was about as good and faithful adaptation as could be crammed into two hours. It actually surprised me with how good it was, and I will defend Snyder's choice not to use the squid to the death. If anything, I thought the flaw with the film (as with V for Vendetta) is just niche appeal that definitionally limits its box office -- neither Watchmen nor V were meant to appeal to broad audiences -- they're far too violent / abrasive / subversive for the mainstream popcorn movie goer who prefers the likes of Avengers or the Nolan Batman adventure flicks.

Wow -- so, nearing the end of its theatrical run, this year's FF managed an (unadjusted) domestic total about equal to that of the first (2005) FF's film's opening weekend. Dang.

Yeah -- that looks like a wishful thinking list, since 1) It's been established that Kang is owned by Fox due to the FF rights. 2) Hasn't Deathlok already appeared a few times in Agents of Shield? Not that they can't won't do more crossovers within the TV universe, but wouldn't ABC (or whomever) have priority claim to him, not Netflix?

There's that. X-Men: DOFP was an excellent X-Men movie (and superhero movie). It was, however, an abominable, horrible & adaptation of X-Men 141-142 -- they had some cojones calling it DOFP.

Interesting. Can't speak to Blade rights but Never Say Never Again was a special case because apparently Eon only owned the rights to the Ian Fleming (& subsequent) novels, while the Thunderball rights were co-owned by Fleming & original authors Kevin Mccrory / Jack Whittingham. They wrote Thunderball as an original screenplay for Bond, after which Fleming subsequently wrote the novel. Result: Once the litigation started (early 80s), Eon lost the rights to Thunderball, meaning that neither Blofeld nor SPECTRE could appear in any more Bond films (until this year -- the litigation settled last year or so). But that freed up other studios to license / remake Thunderball, hence Never Say Never Again. It could use any elements from Thunderball but not other Bond films/books -- hence its still not being counted among the official "James Bond" movies. [Which has always annoyed me -- it's far better than that same year's Octopussy, but to say it's not a Bond film is the same ridiculous argument that non-Disney MCU films shouldn't count as Marvel movies -- even if the demarcation line is largely arbitrary (ie., The Hulk isn't a Marvel movie but Incredible Hulk is. BS).]

Hah! Hadn't thought of Homer Simpson. I still bet Miles Teller, though. He's proven to be an arrogant of Russell Crowe-like proportions, but I think he does have the track record to back it up. If anything, I could see Miles Teller jumping ship on an FF sequel even if Fox does go ahead with it. Doesn't matter if he's already under contract for an FF 2 -- he has the (post-Whiplash) clout to sue to break it if he thinks the -script is (again) mess.

So when is Marvel going to stop being a little person_without_enough_empathy and start publishing FF comics again?

Yeah -- it's hard for me to understand the blanket hate of Fox as a studio when 4 out of their 5 X-Men films have been really good. And Deadpool looks good as well.

So how is Reed's disappearance & survival any more ludicrous than a similar point in the Dark Knight Rises? You know, where Bruce magically heals his broken back with a rope, & hitchhikes -- presumably from the Middle East, sans money or more than the clothes on his back -- across the dessert and back into a besieged and heavily-guarded Gotham?

Wow -- I'm surprised at how far off I was in my $45-50 million prediction of 5-6 days ago. But, given the day-by-day acceleration of this train wreck since last Wednesday, it hasn't been surprising for awhile. The most damning data point so far? Mashable's reporting even Ghost Rider 2 had a higher per-screen average take than did FF its opening weekend ($6,968 vs. $6,558), and that's not even accounting for inflation. Ouch.

I don't think the general audience knows (or cares) which studio did the film. The same way that, as a Bond fan, I get pissed that critics don't count Never Say Never Again or the 1967 Casino Royale just because they weren't produced by Albert Broccoli. Particularly with Never Say Never Again -- sure it was a remake, but it should count as an official Bond film, even if Eon doesn't own the rights & wishes it didn't exist. Incidentally, it's only because of the 2013 legal settlement re. Thunderball that Blofeld can once again appear in this November's Spectre -- the Brocolis hadn't own the rights for decades. From the dozens of reviews I've read, this is a solid FF film up to the last third. And critics are calling a 2 to 2.5 star movie. So it's mediocre & a missed opportunity, but nowhere near 1 star bad (a la Catwoman or Jonah Hex). Sort of like...most of the Roger Moore Bond films.

Not true. From what I've read in other sources, the budget stayed at $122 million despite the re-shoots because the re-shoots were entirely financed out of the reserve originally earmarked for the 3D conversion. So they didn't go over-budget, but the necessity of re-shoots is why the movie's not 3D. Source? Superhero News, subsequently picked up by The Daily Beast, Cinema Blend, Dark Horizons, & others. http://superheronews.com/matthew-vaughn-fantastic-four-reshoots/ http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/05/29/is-marvel-sabotaging-the-fantastic-four-and-x-men.html http://www.darkhorizons.com/news/37109/trank-denies-fantastic-four-reshoot-removal http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Did-Fantastic-Four-Bring-Another-Director-Reshoots-71634.html http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites/JoshWildingNewsAndReviews/news/?a=120916 http://screenrant.com/fantastic-four-matthew-vaughn-josh-trank-reshoot-rumors/ http://movieweb.com/fantastic-four-movie-2015-reshoots-matthew-vaughn/ http://www.blastr.com/2015-5-26/heres-rumored-reason-why-fantastic-four-will-no-longer-be-3d So basically just internet scuttlebutt.... We'll probably never know the real budget for this movie, much like ASM2.... Yes -- internet scuttlebutt, but more reliable than your unsubstantiated conjecture that the $122 million budget didn't include the re-shoots. At the end of the day, I trust the $122 million number primarily because it's been noted by several different reporters at Forbes, whose primary mandate is to highlight the business aspect of films, and thus to get the numbers right. None of the 5 or so articles there on FF so far-- each of which go in-depth with the numbers-- have mentioned re-shoots moving or increasing the $122 million budget. Therefore the rebuttable presumption is that the amount includes the costs of the re-shoots..

Exactly. As in the known cases of 47 Ronin & Punisher: War Zone. Single director, but both "fired" (i.e., rumored to have been locked out of the editing room) following the completion of principle photography. While I do believe that Trank's role was minimized as Kinberg stepped in to help helm re-shoots & quarterback the editing (becoming the effective director in post), I don't actually believe the other rumor, that Vaughn was hired to do the re-shirts (purportedly the last third). Because: a) It wouldn't make sense to bring in an outsider to the production at that late a date; and b) I like Vaughn. I don't want to believe he had any part of this.

Not true. From what I've read in other sources, the budget stayed at $122 million despite the re-shoots because the re-shoots were entirely financed out of the reserve originally earmarked for the 3D conversion. So they didn't go over-budget, but the necessity of re-shoots is why the movie's not 3D. Source? Superhero News, subsequently picked up by The Daily Beast, Cinema Blend, Dark Horizons, & others. http://superheronews.com/matthew-vaughn-fantastic-four-reshoots/ http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/05/29/is-marvel-sabotaging-the-fantastic-four-and-x-men.html http://www.darkhorizons.com/news/37109/trank-denies-fantastic-four-reshoot-removal http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Did-Fantastic-Four-Bring-Another-Director-Reshoots-71634.html http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites/JoshWildingNewsAndReviews/news/?a=120916 http://screenrant.com/fantastic-four-matthew-vaughn-josh-trank-reshoot-rumors/ http://movieweb.com/fantastic-four-movie-2015-reshoots-matthew-vaughn/ http://www.blastr.com/2015-5-26/heres-rumored-reason-why-fantastic-four-will-no-longer-be-3d

Looks like FF did $2.7 million last night. http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/fantastic-four-takes-27-million-813724 Not good, relative to MI:5's $4.0 million or Ant-Man's $6.4 million.

Yes. So it doesn't get the 20% 3-D bump that Ant-Man & others did but will have to stand on its own (a la the Batman movies & MI:5).

Not true. From what I've read in other sources, the budget stayed at $122 million despite the re-shoots because the re-shoots were entirely financed out of the reserve originally earmarked for the 3D conversion. So they didn't go over-budget, but the necessity of re-shoots is why the movie's not 3D.

Balanced review from a different Forbes critic today, titled "Fantastic Four is flawed but acceptable reboot." Among other things he indicates he's a comic reader when he notes he's a fan of the classic issues but understands why Fox went with Ultimate FF. http://www.forbes.com/sites/markhughes/2015/08/07/review-fantastic-four-is-flawed-but-acceptable-reboot/ He also notes that it still could do $90-$100 million domestic + $200-$250 million foreign (and draws similarities to the performance of X-Men: First Class), thus setting up a blockbuster FF sequel (a la X-Men: DOFP).

Wait, Chuck. So now you're _not_ going to go see this movie??

I'm a fan of the Hunger Games books. She did a really good job of ending nearly every chapter on a reversal or cliffhanger that makes you want to read on. That's hard to do. Best example in comics I've seen of it is Brian Vaughn's work in the first 20 or so issues of Y: The Last Man. That said, the first Hunger Games movie was mediocre (far inferior to the book & the vastly better Battle Royale). Catching Fire was great -- actually better than the book. And there's no reason to watch Mockingjay Part 1, because the first half of the book is horrible. I'll be watching the final movie, though, to see if it stays true to the last three chapters of the book or wusses out with a more "Hollywood" ending. I'll defend the book series to the death because it ends on a surprisingly dark note, one that annoyed a whole bunch of fans -- especially the teens to whom it was initially marketed. I love that she had the guts to write such a bleak and polarizing ending to the series, it alienated fans about as much as the ending to "Gone Girl" did.

I'm intrigued that several sources (including the "Weekend Forecast" article on BoxOfficeMojo's front page) are reporting that Matthew Vaughn was brought in as secondary director to help save this film via re-shoots, etc. Prior to this week, I'd just read that it was primary writer/producer Simon Kinberg who was given the reshoots / editing duties.

Why would they need to? Big Hero 6 (A Marvel Animation Studios release) did fine.

Yeah, that's spot-on. I _love_ David Goyer, but he's come a long way from Kickboxer 2 & Demonic Toys. His first comic book flick? Nick Fury -- the David Hasselhoff TV movie. But in my mind he's redeemed himself by giving us the Blade trilogy (which helped spearhead this comic book movie renaissance) and the Nolan Batman trilogy. Man of Steel was flawed, but far better than Superman Returns. There's a certain amount of trial & error in getting superhero films right.

Wow. Some critic is actually comparing this 2015 film to the Corman one. I'm pulling for this movie to do less than $100 million domestic. That would really stop Fox from green lighting another one I would think. To be fair, Mendelson compares this FF film to all of the previous iterations. I included the line you highlighted mainly to show how much of a comic movie nerd the guy is -- he not only has seen all four big-screen FF versions, but can cogently compare and contrast the character representations, relative acting & plots of all of them. Don't know if he is expressly a comic book nerd or reader, but he _really_ does his homework on film history & context. His criticism of ASM 2 for _not_ changing the Gwen Stacey death from ASM 121 is also really well-written & worth a read. It makes strong points about what makes a good comic vs. a good movie & the dearth of strong three-dimensional female leads in comic book movies.

From the (positive) SF Chronicle review -- says it's far better than the previous two FF films: "Fans will be disappointed by the missed opportunity to establish continuity with Fox’s other super-properties (X-Men, Deadpool, etc.) — and no post-credits scene? But they’ll be happy to see the realistic, more grownup tone of the reboot. It goes a long way toward erasing the earlier two films, for which it deserves some credit."