I did not see this movie. Usually, I avoid reading any reviews or watching any spoiler-ish previews before viewing a movie; but, in the case of Fant-4-stic, I made an exception. (Early reports about the casting, production problems, and the trailers let me know, I wasn't going to like it.)
Only 9% of critics and 23% of moviegoers on
rottentomatoes liked it. Hence, I refused to pay money to see this disastrous bomb.
I have experienced a sense of
schadenfreude from bad reviews and reports of poor box office performance. For example, see
FANTASTIC FOUR What Went Wrong? by Mr Sunday Movies.
From reports, it looks like:
- 20th Century Fox made another FF movie in order to retain the rights to the property (and prevent the rights from returning to Marvel).
- They hired Josh Trank, who directed
Chronicle, and he produced a Chronicle-like treatment for Marvel's first family.
- Predictably, Fox executives meddled and interfered, effectively destroying Trank's artistic vision.
- Extensive reshoots were done by another director. Many reviewers suggest the film's conclusion (after Doctor Doom appears) was mostly the product of reshoots.
- After the film was released and reviewers almost unanimously panned it, Trank tweeted about how the released film was not the version that he created, and the studio ruined it.
- Official statements by Fox talk about supporting Trank's vision, which seems like corporate-speak for, "Let's make the 31-year-old director the scapegoat for this epic failure."
Seems similar to the
Green Lantern movie (yeah, that bad), where studio suits inappropriately exerted influence over a superhero movie and did not trust the director's artistic vision, resulting in a lousy movie-going experience for comic book fans and the general public alike, and effectively killing a potentially lucrative movie franchise.