The 2015 “Fantastic Four” reboot was widely panned by critics and fans for making major changes to the source material, and now, four years later, it’s being panned by its own director, Josh Trank.
Trank wrote a review of his movie on Letterboxd Friday, and in the first sentence, he summed up what most critics have been saying for almost half a decade: “Huh.”
“Okay first of all, I thought it would be GREAT if I searched FF2015 and the shit wasn’t even on here. Low key I kinda was hoping it wasn’t. But it was! And I’m here. Anyway. Where to begin… the movie is ALRIGHT,” he wrote.
He, like others before him, praised the “great cast” of the film. But his critique went downhill from there.
“Everyone in the film is a great actor, and overall there is a movie in there, somewhere. And that cast deserves to be in THAT movie,” he wrote. “Everyone who worked on Fant4stic clearly wanted to be making THAT movie. But…. ultimately… It wasn’t.”
On the eve of the 2015 premiere of “Fantastic Four” — which stars Miles Teller, Kate Mara, Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Bell – Trank tweeted and then quickly deleted his opinion of the film, saying, “A year ago, I had a fantastic version of this. And it would have received great reviews. You’ll probably never see. That’s reality though.”
That tweet may have helped sink the box office for Fox’s $120 million Marvel superhero reboot, which had been tracking for a $40 million opening weekend, but instead pulling in a feeble $26.2 million.
Trank noted in his review posted Friday that he hadn’t watched the movie since two weeks before its initial release, when he “was in a heavily f—ing traumatized state of mind,” a comment he didn’t elaborate on.
But he did go on to compare himself to (and praise) director Zack Snyder, who has done blockbuster comic adaptation films with heavy-hitting ensemble casts (like “The Suicide Squad” and “Wonder Woman 1984”). “Zack Snyder is a storied, iconic, legendary filmmaker who has been knocking it out of the f—ing park since I was in high school,” he said.
Trank was just 29 years old when he made “Fantastic Four,” only the second film to his credit and, as he would say, “in a situation more complicated than anything a 2nd time filmmaker should’ve walked into.”
“That said… I don’t regret any of it. It’s a part of me,” he said. “And I just hope Peyton Reed makes the next Fantastic Four and crushes it. And that I get a cameo.”
Reed will return to direct Marvel Studios’ “Ant-Man 3,” which will likely release in 2022.