Variety is reporting that FOX is set to reboot the Fantastic Four franchise and give it a fresh start. While Akiva Goldsman is set to be producer, the same guy who wrote the script for the forth-coming Green Lantern movie, Michael Green, is on board to write the script.
The 2005 “Fantastic Four” and 2007 sequel “Rise of the Silver Surfer” were directed by Tim Story and starred Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Chris Evans and Michael Chiklis. Since the deals for the reboot are just getting made, it is unclear if any of them will return.
Though Marvel Entertainment owns and finances properties like “Iron Man” and “Thor,” Fox controls “Fantastic Four” in perpetuity — as long as it continues making the films. Fox has the same arrangement on Marvel Comics properties “X-Men,” “Daredevil” and “Silver Surfer.” Marvel is a producer and financial participant through a licensing agreement.
It’s no secret that both F4 films were less than… “Fantastic” (I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist.) but does FOX really have the chops to “reboot” a bad set of films they were responsible for in the first place? Of all the studios that own Marvel characters, it has been FOX that I have been the least impressed with. I’m hoping that maybe, just maybe, one of these days FOX will hit their stride and put together some great Marvel movies as they did with the first two X-Men films. Of course, in an ideal world, Marvel would use their newfound parent company, Disney, to buy back some of these properties and keep everything in house (which would be sure to incite more bitching and moaning about how people think Disney will ruin their beloved Marvel characters), but it seems for the time there are no plans to do so.
And in the mean time, this robot is left wondering when his beloved Daredevil will finally get a second chance…