This year’s version of ‘Fantastic Four’ got absolutely panned by critic’s and sits on a measly 9% on Rotten Tomatoes – the worst rating for a Marvel comic book film ever. I defended the film in my review of it as I found that problems aside, there was still a good film in there which unfortunately had been tangled with by Fox’s executives. Director Josh Trank even disowned his own film on its release day by writing his thoughts up on Twitter then quickly deleting the tweet.

Trank had reportedly treated the film crew terribly, trashed his house and ultimately was unprofessional. Fox executives didn’t like the finished film and reshoots then had to be carried out, with some reports hinting that Matthew Vaughn (Kick-Ass, X-Men: First Class, Kingsman: The Secret Service) stepped in to direct the reshoots after Trank was allegedly deemed incompetent. All this bad news culminated in Trank leaving (more likely kicked off) an upcoming Star-Wars spin-off. Fox was so sceptical of the film that the critic embargo for the film lifted on the day of its release so bad word of mouth couldn’t get out. Not only did it get panned by critic’s, it tanked hard at the box office earning $168 million on a $120 million budget – not enough to break even.

Fox initially insisted that the ‘Fantastic Four’ sequel was moving forward despite the box office failure of the first film but they have now officially removed the ‘Fantastic Four’ sequel from their release schedule originally pencilled in for a 9th June 2017 release date. Funnily enough, the sequel had been announced ahead of the first film’s release as they had felt confident that the film wouldn’t flop. They couldn’t have been more wrong.

I think it’s a shame that the sequel has been effectively, cancelled. I realise I am in the vast minority but with some tweaks and perhaps more studio confidence for Trank, they could have been onto a winner and redeemed themselves. The Fantastic Four actors gelled well together in the film so it would have been nice to see what they would have got up to next. At least everyone has been able to redeem themselves after this film – Miles Teller has several jobs lined up, Kate Mara managed to quickly dig herself out of a hole by starring in ‘The Martian’, Michael B. Jordan too with ‘Creed’. Only Jamie Bell has nothing on his schedule but with an actor of such a high calibre as he is, I don’t doubt he will find work.

The only person who is in a really bad position is Josh Trank who hasn’t been able to find work and most likely, no studio will want to touch him after the fiasco that happened on-set of this film and the fact that he publicly disowned the film and Fox on release.

The only direction these superheroes are going to go now is in the way of the Marvel Cinematic Universe who will probably pick them up seeing as the rights reverted back to them.