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[EdibleKnife]

Obviously, it's not big news that studios and creatives tasked with bringing Marvel's First Family to the big screen. From the corny Corman effort, to the Tim Story space cloud-sized embarrassments, to the technical, emotional, and mental trainwreck that was Fant4stic, fans of the Fantastic Four in particular haven't had their Iron Man or Winter Soldier or Doctor Strange.

Well film reviewer Bob Chipman aka MovieBob takes on the task in a little thought experiment: If Marvel/Disney finally grasped back the rights to Mr. Fantastic, The Thing, The Invisible Woman, and The Human Torch to work into the Marvel Cinematic Universe proper, What would actually be an intriguing, worthwhile direction to take the group to distance itself as much as it can from previous efforts? And honestly, he does come up with a lot of very interesting ideas in a 2 part (~25 minute total) set of videos he's put up on his YouTube channel

PART 1
PART 2

What do other Gaffer's think of some of what's presented by Bob?

I find I particularly like the point about

Spoiler

keeping Doom out of the first movie and utilizing Puppetmaster

 

[DrSlek]

I don't think such a long article/video is needed to type the words "Take the franchise away from Fox"

 

[Mr. Smiley]

Watvhed them earlier. Admittedly, my experience with FF is near-zilch but Bob makes it sound hella interesting for a MCU take. Good point about Doom.

 

[clay_ghost]

Huh sounds interesting, will watch when I am home.

 

[Sibersk Esto]

I'm not really onboard with the time displacement idea. I know it was touched upon in the video but Cap and Starlord have that angle cornered so hard that the MCU doesn't need another fish out of water.

Yes to no Doom in the first film, he needs a breather.

That's a good idea for a climax involving Puppetmaster.

 

[Oersted]

Is this a long way of saying give it to Pixar?

 

[Admiral Woofington]

In the MCU it's definitely possible. Just make them the correct amount of cheesy. And for the love of God don't put them in new york

 

[Laieon]

In the MCU it's definitely possible. Just make them the correct amount of cheesy. And for the love of God don't put them in new york

I'd be down for seeing a city that isn't Chicago, LA, New York, or Toronto pretending to be another city.

The Fantastic Four are astronauts/scientists, right? Lets throw them in Houston or something, have them work in mission control.

 

[Jorok Goldblade]

I'd be down for seeing a city that isn't Chicago, LA, New York, or Toronto pretending to be another city.

The Fantastic Four are astronauts/scientists, right? Lets throw them in Houston or something, have them work in mission control.

With the MCU it's Atlanta pretending to be other cities.

And the MCU has been pretty good about placing heroes in locations other than New York.

Iron Man operates out of Malibu

Cap out of DC

Thor has been in New Mexico and London

Ant Man is in San Francisco

New York is still pretty well represented, but it's mainly Avengers Tower, Doctor Strange and Spidey residing in NYC with Hulk making a brief excursion to Harlem.

 

[Admiral Woofington]

Hulk in Harlem would be a fantastic movie

 

[dh4niel]

I always thought centering the story on Doom's origin would be a good idea and spin the rest out of that. He has the most interesting backstory.

 

[Kin5290]

I always thought centering the story on Doom's origin would be a good idea and spin the rest out of that. He has the most interesting backstory.

Have to agree with Bob that this would be the worst of all possible ideas. You're already establishing four separate characters in the first movie, and you can't fit in a fifth character backstory and a plot for the characters to move around in all within a 150 minute window. And why would you ever want to waste Doctor Doom in a movie where he either isn't going to be Doctor Doom until the last five minutes or he jobs to the heroes who are just getting started in their heroic career?

Or he dies, which would be an even worse idea.

 

[GAMEPROFF]

I don't think such a long article/video is needed to type the words "Take the franchise away from Fox"

They cant, anyway.
Its owned by Constantin Film. They just have a publishing deal with Fox. Same with Resident Evil, for example. Constantin Film owns the Rights, but Sony makes the movies and gets a share of the money.

 

[Gleethor]

Watched both, I sign off on his plan completely.

 

[Zero-ELEC]

They cant, anyway.
Its owned by Constantin Film. They just have a publishing deal with Fox. Same with Resident Evil, for example. Constantin Film owns the Rights, but Sony makes the movies and gets a share of the money.

Didn't Constantin Film go bankrupt or somesuch recently? I wonder if that affected the rights...

 

[GAMEPROFF]

Didn't Constantin Film go bankrupt or somesuch recently? I wonder if that affected the rights...

Nope. Internal power fights that are about to go to court. No real news since January, sadly.

 

[Banderdash]

Bring. Back. Hornblower.

 

[Kalentan]

All things considered it isn't a bad idea imho.

 

[Miles Quaritch]

The director of the last FF, Tran something? Had some interesting ideas that didn't go over well with FOX.

I think he said something about Galactus showing up in the intro as well as introducing some other FF characters. Sounded pretty decent from what I can remember.

 

[KHlover]

Send Susan, Richard, The Thing and Dr. Doom on a lenghty vacation, make a Human Torch vs Spiderman movie.

 

[polyh3dron]

I don't think such a long article/video is needed to type the words "Take the franchise away from Fox"

first post nails it

 

[peanutbutterlatte]

In the MCU it's definitely possible. Just make them the correct amount of cheesy. And for the love of God don't put them in new york

Word, there's only so many world-changing superhero teams that the Netflix series can tacitly ignore.

 

[SuperEpicMan]

I posted this a while ago:

Heres an idea, the movie could start out in some sort of SHIELD like facility, some sort of alert or announcement could be made saying something causing a person to hastily walk to some lab whereupon we meet the F4 for the first time. They have managed to find something significant, weird energy patterns coming from Latveria. F4 are despatched to investigate. On leaving the facility, you see it is actually a SWORD facility and through a short montage (think the one from the opening of the first Thor), you quickly see the origins of the F4 were during some past movie events, maybe the chitauri attack, and they have been operating out of sword doing research and secret missions since. End the montage with them arriving in Latveria and meeting Doom being all swagger lol, awesome movie then takes place. Then at the end, they detect signals from deep space, possibly Galactus or the annihilation wave.

Maybe they could use SWORD to explain where Nick Fury has been.

 

[Alienous]

I liked the idea about his to introduce Doctor Doom.

With the Fantastic Four though I feel like they might make the MCU feel far too racially homogenous. I couldn't help but think that whenever picturing them as the new faces of a MCU Phase 4. That said I'd like to see the Marvel main players as part of the MCU, and considering X-Men as their own thing the Fantastic Four and Submariner seem like the missing puzzle piece.

 

[EdibleKnife]

The director of the last FF, Tran something? Had some interesting ideas that didn't go over well with FOX.

I think he said something about Galactus showing up in the intro as well as introducing some other FF characters. Sounded pretty decent from what I can remember.

Josh Trank. Never heard of that original idea he had

 

[Mesoian]

I don't think such a long article/video is needed to type the words "Take the franchise away from Fox"

Yurp.

Alternatively at this point, I think all you need to take is doom. Rebooting the series again in 3 years is just going to cause a lot of people to side eye the entire production. Fox went out of their way to drive that series intot he ground.

 

[Kalentan]

The director of the last FF, Tran something? Had some interesting ideas that didn't go over well with FOX.

I think he said something about Galactus showing up in the intro as well as introducing some other FF characters. Sounded pretty decent from what I can remember.

I know Peyton Reed of Ant-Man wanted to do a FF movie set in the 1960s or something like that.

 

[SpaceWolf]

Seems like a pointless discussion given that The Fantastic Four aren't going anywhere.

 

[Sephzilla]

I don't think such a long article/video is needed to type the words "Take the franchise away from Fox"

/thread

 

[George Oscar Bluth II]

You can easily have Doom as an established character in the first film without making him the villain.

I don't even want the origins told again. Just do what The Incredible Hulk did and quickly cover it in the opening credits then have a jump to like 5 years in. Have the team, their tech and whatever all established so we can quickly get into some space adventuring.

 

[Kalentan]

Seems like a pointless discussion given that The Fantastic Four aren't going anywhere.

It's just fun hypotheticals.

 

[Slayven]

I don't think such a long article/video is needed to type the words "Take the franchise away from Fox"

Pretty much, Guardians 2 showed what a FF would be like.

 

[Tatsumaki Senpuukyaku!]

In the MCU it's definitely possible. Just make them the correct amount of cheesy. And for the love of God don't put them in new york

Not setting the FF in NY would be like not setting Seinfeld in NY

 

[SpaceWolf]

It's just fun hypotheticals.

It's giving false hope to those in regards to a hopeless cause. I disapprove!

 

[hodayathink]

Seems like a pointless discussion given that The Fantastic Four aren't going anywhere.

Letting rights revert after unsuccessful movies isn't unheard of. I mean, it happened to Daredevil and Ghost Rider. The only question is how many times Constantin/Fox is willing to dip into this well before they say enough is enough, seeing as the next attempt will be #3. Only Sony has rebooted a character that many times, and those movies made much more money than Fox's FF movies have.

 

[Beer Monkey]

Set it in an alternate timeline in the 1960s, go full psychedelic Jack Kirby, hire Noah Hawley to develop it.

 

[Tatsumaki Senpuukyaku!]

Set it in an alternate timeline in the 1960s, go full psychedelic Jack Kirby, hire Noah Hawley to develop it.

That's what they should do. They would never do it though because they can't make it part of a connected universe that way.

Unless they did an entire connected MCU and set it in the 60s, which I would also be totall for.

 

[TangoAlphaLima]

Set it in an alternate timeline in the 1960s, go full psychedelic Jack Kirby, hire Noah Hawley to develop it.

That's a smart move for Fox on a reboot attempt, but Disney/Marvel would never go that direction. They want everything in the MCU connected.

 

[Tobor]

Letting rights revert after unsuccessful movies isn't unheard of. I mean, it happened to Daredevil and Ghost Rider. The only question is how many times Constantin/Fox is willing to dip into this well before they say enough is enough, seeing as the next attempt will be #3. Only Sony has rebooted a character that many times, and those movies made much more money than Fox's FF movies have.

Exactly. Fox has thrown in the towel before.

Anyone know how many years they have left to try again before the rights expire?

 

[B-Dubs]

Give it to Disney, do a series of movies based on Hickman's F4 run. Boom. Done. Problem solved.

 

[George Oscar Bluth II]

That's what they should do. They would never do it though because they can't make it part of a connected universe that way.

Unless they did an entire connected MCU and set it in the 60s, which I would also be totall for.

This is why I'm getting real tired of the whole connected universe stuff. It was really cool for the first two phases but now it just feels like it's getting in the way of creativity.

 

[Pai Pai Master]

Exactly. Fox has thrown in the towel before.

Anyone know how many years they have left to try again before the rights expire?

Still 5 or 6 years at this point. They'll try again.

 

[SpaceWolf]

Exactly. Fox has thrown in the towel before.

Anyone know how many years they have left to try again before the rights expire?

Isn't it like, ten?

 

[Dude Abides]

You can't because they are dumb. The only one with cool powers is the fire guy.

 

[The Broken Ska Record]

Honestly, I think the very first FF issue would work well enough for a movie. The FF are already a team and working together. Maybe establish the Baxter Building towards the end instead of having it right away, but show how the FF got their powers during the opening credits a la Incredible Hulk.

 

[George Oscar Bluth II]

Isn't it like, ten?

Seven, I think. They have to out out something every seven years, which means they have five left to get another film out.

 

[Nairume]

You can easily have Doom as an established character in the first film without making him the villain.

My idea has always been to have Doom "absent" from the first film on the surface, but then secretly hide a subplot about him taking over Latvia in background elements (ala news reports on tv, background dialog, newspapers/magazines) that culminates in Lucia von Bardas as a representative of the new Latvian government commentating on the F4 at the end of the movie.

Spoiler

And then have her speak to Doom in the obligatory post-credit sequence

 

[Tobor]

That's what they should do. They would never do it though because they can't make it part of a connected universe that way.

Unless they did an entire connected MCU and set it in the 60s, which I would also be totall for.

Of course they could. It could be really cool too. Have the first movie with them hopping dimensions with 60's tech and at the end they reappear on Earth, 50 years too late. Now they're in the modern MCU as fishes out of water, like Cap. Boom.

 

[broncobuster]

Set it in an alternate timeline in the 1960s, go full psychedelic Jack Kirby, hire Noah Hawley to develop it.

That's what they should do. They would never do it though because they can't make it part of a connected universe that way.

Unless they did an entire connected MCU and set it in the 60s, which I would also be totall for.

In theory they could and even tie-in Pym's Ant-Man.

But Fox could totally make it its own thing set in the '60s. X-Men movies have been period pieces as is. And Logan and Deadpool are more or less set in their own universes. It's down to hiring the right people to make it, not the studio...by that I mean keep Simon Kinberg away from it.

 

[Khaz]

Make them a team of scientists who go into space in the 00s and tragically disappear while investigating something. The something reappears 20 years later and got them super powers. Give Johnny an ipod filled with late 90s music and you have a GOTG success on your hands.

00s because Reed being fro the 60s and being a super genius in the modern world wouldn't work imo.