Following a recent trend I’m still not sure whether or not I’m a fan of, the suits over at Fox are gearing up for a reboot of Fantastic Four. IESB has the exclusive on the story, and they say they’re hearing that with Daredevil and Planet of the Apes both in the running for fresh starts, the commercially-successful but critically-drubbed Fantastic Four franchise will be getting a makeover as well. Fans never warmed to Tim Story’s version of Fantastic Four, so the reboot will entail a new director, a new direction, and a new cast. And surprise surprise, they’re going for a “darker” route, though reportedly not quite as dark as The Dark Knight, just as dark as Tony Stark.

“Dark” has really become a buzzword for comic book movies since The Dark Knight broke all sorts of records. Thankfully for this proposed reboot, the studio folk aren’t being completely daft and just slathering “darkness” willy-nilly on it. No, instead they’ll be “showing restraint” by only going as dark as Iron Man. It’s kind of a strange dynamic, but fanboys should be thankful that Iron Man was around last year to offer a counterpoint to The Dark Knight. Both were successful, but with TDK’s runaway sales figures, it would’ve been easy for studio heads to just want to make TDK versions of every comic book property (and indeed there was a scary moment when Superman was rumored to be going the dark route. Oh, how wrong that would (and still could) be). But with Iron Man, which had the so-called “darkness” studio chiefs wanted and could easily identify and support without really understanding, being so successful as well, it gives writers and producers a different perspective to pitch to studios that would suit other comic properties much more appropriately than a myopic insistence on “darkness.” And lo and behold, we see plenty of comic book movies getting the Iron Man treatment nowadays, most recently The Green Lantern, and this rumored Fantastic Four reboot. Hopefully one of them will manage to be different and successful as well, broadening the pool of templates writers can pitch for an easier studio greenlight.

I’m still not sure how I feel about redoing recent movies (a la Hulk). On the one hand, it makes sense to want to give a much-beloved property the treatment it deserves, but it also kind of cheapens the experience a little. Fans who lined up and paid to see the crappy originals will essentially have to pay twice to hopefully see the version they want. And if these remakes are successful, it essentially gives studios free license to screw up, and who’s to say how it’ll affect the production process on first-time properties. Maybe studios will feel more inclined to half-ass it through development or meddle more during production, thinking that if they screw it up, they can always reboot it in four or five years. Or, maybe it could end up benefiting filmmakers, resulting in studios being less inclined to meddle for the same reasons. Whatever the fallout is, it looks like this trend isn’t going anywhere for the time being.

Thoughts on all of this?

Tags: Fantastic Four, Fox, Tim Story