Marvel's fearsome foursome
By Scott Bowles, USA TODAY
Since they formed a dysfunctional superhero family in 1961, the Fantastic Four have grappled with all forms of treachery and villains such as the power-hungry Dr. Doom, the bionic soldier Super-Skrull and the planet-devouring Galactus.
From left to right: Chris Evans, Michael Chiklis, Jessica Alba, and Ioan Gruffudd bring the Fantastic Four to life.
20th Century Fox
But they never faced the League of Nerds. Or its doomsday weapon: the Internet. Or an Oscar-winning animated film that beat the superheroes to the big screen.
Those foes arise July 8 when Fantastic Four arrives in theaters amid weighty expectations. And although the world may not be at stake, Hollywood's comic-book universe will be watching how one of its most beloved titles fares on the big screen.
A lot is riding on the film. Distributor 20th Century Fox already has committed to at least one sequel and has hopes for an X-Men-style franchise. More than 60 companies have merchandise tie-ins, producing everything from Fantastic Four video games to toothbrushes and beanbag chairs.
Many also see the film as a chance to invigorate a genre that has sputtered of late. Though comic-book sequels such as Spider-Man and X-Men have been hits, new adaptations have struggled. Catwoman and Elektra were unmitigated flops. The $100 million Constantine opened to a strong $34 million but dropped 64% its second weekend.
The genre, says Rob Worley of comics2film.com, could use a hero — or four.
"People have been waiting for years for this movie to be done right," Worley says. "The comic book is so loved, I think fans just want something that pays respect to the stories they grew up on."
But will respect be enough? The road to theaters has been a bumpy one for Marvel Comics' first superheroes.
Hollywood has been tossing around scripts for decades. A campy 1993 movie was made but never released. Director Peyton Reed (Down With Love) left the current film in 2003, citing creative differences.
Newer challenges face the superhero family. Internet buzz has been mixed for the film's trailer, and some devotees are incensed at the film's departures from the original story line. The movie had to surrender its original July 4 weekend debut so it would not compete with Tom Cruise's War of the Worlds, which opens June 29.
And a little cartoon already has stolen some thunder from Mr. Fantastic and company. The Incredibles, which won an Oscar last month for best animated film and raked in $259 million, was a thinly veiled parody of the comic book. Fantastic Four filmmakers concede they had to alter their movie, even cutting one scene that was too similar to one in The Incredibles.
After The Incredibles opening, "the first couple of weeks there were a lot of four-letter words thrown around," Fantastic Four director Tim Story says. "Add that to the crazy shooting schedule, and it's felt like everything about this movie has been on the fly.
"But in the end, I think we're going to have the goods. Fans are going to see it was worth the wait. And I'm hoping we can turn non-fans on to Fantastic Four."
Legend to the rescue
To hear Stan Lee tell it, there almost was no Fantastic Four.
The 82-year-old writer for Marvel Comics had been with the company since the 1940s and had grown tired of stories about vampires and mutants.
"We weren't doing comic books about superheroes back then," he says. "They were romances and mysteries and stories for very young children or adults who didn't have high IQs. I was tired of it and was going to quit."
His wife suggested he do one more comic book, his way. "If I got fired, so what?" Lee says.
Around the same time, rival DC Comics, which was then known as National Periodicals, was seeing huge success with its Justice League of America, a team of heroes that included Superman, Batman, Flash and Green Lantern.
Martin Goodman, publisher of Marvel (then Atlas/Timely), asked Lee to attempt his own super team. Lee joined artist Jack Kirby and created Fantastic Four, based on four astronauts who are zapped by cosmic radiation on their way out of the Earth's atmosphere.
Lee created less a team of superheroes than a family of oddballs. Team leader Reed Richards, aka Mr. Fantastic, is a brilliant scientist who has the consistency of Silly Putty and can stretch his body to extreme lengths. Reed's best friend, Ben Grimm, aka The Thing, is a living pile of orange rocks who possesses great strength — and sarcasm. Susan Storm, or the Invisible Woman, can disappear on demand. And her kid brother, Johnny Storm, i.e. the Human Torch, has a penchant for flames, which fly from his body.
The team was, and remains, an anomaly in the comic-book world. Initially, the four did not wear costumes. The group doesn't hide its powers from the public and enjoys some level of celebrity. The four bicker, tease one another and occasionally struggle with their place in the world. Over the years, members have quit the family only to return. Reed and Susan are married and have a child, Franklin, whose telepathic powers are emerging.
The comic was an immediate hit, but fans wrote Lee with one complaint. They hated the street-clothes look. In the third issue, the Fantastic Four donned their blue costumes.
"I've never understood it," Lee says. "For as long as I've been doing comic books, fans have insisted their heroes be in some kind of get-up. That's the only reason The Incredible Hulk has green skin. It was the only costume I could think of for a guy who doesn't wear a shirt."
The outfits did wonders for Fantastic Four. The comic has sold more than 250 million copies worldwide. It remains one of Marvel Comics' top 10 sellers.
Danny Fingeroth, author of Superman on the Couch: What Superheroes Really Tell Us About Ourselves and Our Society, says that Fantastic Four captured readers with its take on family.
"Before then, comic-book heroes were the Boy Scout and Girl Scout type, very two-dimensional," he says. "But these characters don't always get along. There's a real sense of humor — sometimes at each other's expense. They are dealing with emotions like guilt, remorse and anger. But in the end, when the chips are down, they are there for each other, just like most families. That's why they've appealed over the decades."
Appealing at the box office is a harder sell. It's one thing to draw a man on fire. Getting Johnny Storm to throw fireballs that will impress a film audience already jaded by spectacle is another matter.
In 1993, Constantin Films had to produce a movie to keep its film rights to the property. The company cranked out a $1.5 million film, produced by Roger Corman, full of 1960s camp and crude special effects that included a mechanically extended arm for Mr. Fantastic. The hokey film was never released, though bootleg versions are floating around the Internet.
Though Fox has more money and technology to throw at this film, it also faces a skeptical fan base already concerned that the script is straying too far from the source. Some bloggers are taking the film to task for its treatment of the villain Victor Von Doom, aka Dr. Doom. In the movie, Doom is a fellow astronaut of the Fantastic Four, a vast departure from the comics.
"I've stopped looking at the Internet," director Story says. "I've been nerding out, trying to learn as much about the comic book and the characters as I can. But I'll never know as much as those guys. And I realize I'll never please them all. I knew the hard-core fans would be on me for every little detail. I just have to look past that to get the spirit of the characters."
Challenges all around
Some of that spirit, filmmakers and executives concede, was usurped by The Incredibles. The Pixar film has a father with great strength, a mother who can stretch, a daughter who can become invisible and a son with superhuman speed.
"Some of The Incredibles is lifted so clearly from the Fantastic Four" story, says 20th Century Fox president Hutch Parker.
"But that is an all (computer-generated) movie. Ours is a pretty different enterprise. I don't think it will hurt us. If anything, the success of one fantastical tale helps open the door to another."
Try telling that to Marvel Studios chief Avi Arad. Arad managed a ticket to The Incredibles premiere "and snuck in undercover." He left feeling less than incredible.
"I have no legal proof they lifted anything" from the comic book, he says. "Let's just say great minds think alike."
Filmmakers cut a scene in which The Thing rescues a cat from a tree because it looked too similar to a scene in which Mr. Incredible does the same thing.
"That had been a part of the comic book, but they did the scene first," Arad says. "And they made a great movie. Our challenge is to make just as great a movie."
Story says he can. And he is aiming beyond comic-book fans. "The person I really want to reach is the girlfriend who has never heard of the comic but tags along with her boyfriend. If she likes it, too, we'll have made a good movie."
