The “Fantastic Four” casting has been completed and the choices for the cast seem really off the wall and strange. The film, directed by “Chronicle” director Josh Trank has announced all four actors who will play the superheroes in the upcoming reboot of the movie. Miles Teller is Reed Richards, Kate Mara is Sue Storm/The Invisible Girl, Jamie Bell is The Thing and Michael B. Jordan will play the Human Torch.
With that in mind, here is a look at what this casting means.
This is The Ultimates version of “The Fantastic Four”
The first thing that this makes clear is that the Fantastic Four in this movie will be the Ultimates universe version of “The Fantastic Four”. In the original Marvel Comics, the Fantastic Four were astronauts led into outer space on a mission and ended up passing through cosmic rays and came out with super powers. The age casting in this movie will make that possibility impossible.
In the Ultimates Marvel universe, Reed Richards was a child genius who started getting government grants at the age of 11. When he turned 21, Reed tapped into a world known as the N-Zone, which is the Ultimates version of the Negative Zone. The experiment screws up and Reed and his friends develop super powers. That is likely the origin they will be using in this movie.
Johnny Storm and Sue Storm are no longer blood relatives
The most controversial aspect was changing Johnny Storm from a hot headed white kid into an African American. This means that they will change the back story of Johnny and Sue. In both comics, they are blood relatives, and in the Ultimates world, they are the children of a renowned brilliant scientist named Franklin Storm. Obviously, all they will need to do in the movie is make Johnny adopted or change the two into half or step siblings. However, that will change part of the dynamic of their relationship.
Ben Grimm is drastically different
The biggest change is not Johnny’s skin color, but the fact that in both “Fantastic Four” worlds, Ben Grimm was a large and muscular jock who often protected Reed Richards when he was bullied. Jamie Bell is not big in any stretch of the imagination. The other thing to understand is that the team was changed into powers that matched their personalities – Johnny was a hot head and became The Human Torch, Reed is a multi-tasking genius and can now stretch and do any number of things at the same time without moving. Ben was a large muscle head and then he became the rock covered Thing.
What all this means for the actual “Fantastic Four” movie is unknown, but the casting makes it look like Josh Trank will be heading in a very different direction than comic book fans might be familiar with. “The Fantastic Four” hits theaters on June 19, 2015.
Source: Variety
