Of all the tentpole releases scheduled for next summer, one film has been conspicuously absent from any sort of marketing or promotional push: Josh Trank’s Fantastic Four reboot. While a few behind-the-scenes photos have managed to leak out, 20th Century Fox has acted swiftly to have them removed from most sites (including ours). So what’s the deal? San Diego Comic-Con and New York Comic-Con have both come and gone, with nary a word about Fantastic Four, leaving room for speculation that the studio is worried how the film will be received.
Not so, says screenwriter Simon Kinberg, who also produced the reboot. There’s a perfectly good explanation, and he explained matters during a recent chat with ComicBook.com:
“I don’t, actually [know when we’ll reveal something.]We’re putting it together now, and one of the important things, because this Fantastic Four is a reboot, and is such a different tonality and vibe from those other films, we want to make sure that the first thing we put out really expresses the voice of the movie, and isn’t compromised by not having visual effects ready, or anything like that.
I don’t actually know when it’s coming out, but I’ve seen all the footage from the movie. I was there for pretty much the whole shoot. It is a very different film from the others, and one that I think is very different from other superhero movies. It’s a very emotional, character-driven, more grounded film than I think people are anticipating.”
His explanation does carry some weight, as the photos that have leaked thus far have all been from a green screen sequence, making it impossible to know how the final images will look when effects have been completed. There was plenty of outcry about the look of Doctor Doom and The Thing, but the finished versions of these characters could vary wildly from the leaked production photos we’ve seen.
Fantastic Four is scheduled to hit theaters on August 7, 2015.
20th century fox fantastic four josh trank simon kinberg