Technically, two trailers, but for the same movie, The Fantastic Four: First Steps.
The Fantastic Four is Marvel’s First Family. Unlike the Avengers, with a wide range of origins, the Fantastic Four gained their powers when their spaceship flew through cosmic radiation. Reed Richards became Mr. Fantastic with an elastic body. Sue Storm, later Sue Storm-Richards, became the Invisible Girl, capable of manipulating light and creating force fields. Sue’s brother, Johnny Storm, gained the ability to generate and control flames, becoming the Human Torch. Ben Grimm, Reed’s best friend since college and the pilot of the spaceship, grew a rocky hide and gained super strength, turning into the ever-loving, blue-eyed Thing. With their powers and despite bickering like a family, they defend the Earth from interstellar, intergalactic, and interdimensional threats.
The first Fantastic Four movie was never released. Directed by Roger Corman, it was due out in 1994 and had a trailer, but never hit theatres. Bootlegs exist, and Marvel has a copy of the film. The first Fantastic Four film to be released was in 2005, with the FF facing off against Doctor Doom, one of the team’s major recurring villains. The movie had a good return in the box office, but there were some problems, including Doom not being the villain he is in the comics. The main problem the film had was that The Incredibles, Pixar’s movie about a superpowered family, came out the year before and covered the theme of a superpowered family better than FF did..
The film had a sequel in 2007 with Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. Galactus, Devourer of Worlds, makes his film debut, but not in the form he has in the comics. Rise of the Silver Surfer had a strong opening weekend but severe drop offs in attendance in the following weeks.
The third FF film came out in 2015. Stylized as Fant4stic in posters, the movie was loosely based on the *Ultimate Fantastic Four* comics. The film bombed at the box office and would be the last FF film Fox would make prior to being assimilated by Disney.
However, the Fantastic Four, as a group and as a concept, is still viable. Which brings us to the two trailers.
First impressions – The Fantastic Four: First Steps is a period piece set in the 60s, around the time the comic was first published. The FF are celebrities, having forgone the idea of secret identities. There’s even a cartoon of them in the setting. The film is also not an origin story; they have their powers already. Galactus is the obvious villain and in his proper comic book form. The Silver Surfer is serving as his herald, telling the inhabitants of Earth of their inevitable demise.
Casting looks good here. Pedro Pascal as Reed, Vanessa Kirby as Sue, Joseph Quinn as Johnny. Ebon Moss-Bachrach as the Thing. Julia Garner as the Silver Surfer, but not the Norrin Radd version of the Surfer. There’s even an appearance by HERBIE, the robot created for the 1978 cartoon, The New Fantastic Four, to fill in for the Human Torch due to a rights issue at the time.
First Steps also appears to be leaning into the family aspect of the FF, something at best glazed over in the previous movies. Being family is the difference that sets the Fantastic Four from both the Avengers and the X-Men. If Marvel Studios can remember that, the movie stands a chance of being at least accurate to the comic. Early marvel movies – Iron Man, Thor, even Ant-Man were superheroic versions of other genres – techno thriller, myth, and heist movie respectively.
The trailers show promise. The characters look right, even Galactus. The theme appears to be about family. This may be the first proper Fantastic Four movie. Trailers aren’t always indicative of the movie advertised, and the execution remains to be seen.
This article was originally published at THE REMAKE ZONE.