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4 Reasons Why Fantastic Four Should Have Worked (And 4 Reasons It Didn’t)

Oh dear. Superhero movies have enjoyed unprecedented success in the past decade, forever changing the way Hollywood approaches blockbuster filmmaking, but the cracks are finally beginning to show. The fact that Avengers: Age of Ultron is now the sixth highest grossing movie of all-time should fly in the face of that, except that analysts and critics alike were shocked when Joss Whedon's sequel failed to match the success of its predecessor. Marvel also had another hit on their hands this year with Ant-Man, an atypical hero who few had heard of outside of comic book fandom, but the film still performed relatively poorly in comparison with the rest of the studio's output.

2) Studio Interference

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On the other hand, there’s also a large amount of evidence suggesting that Fox Studios need to shoulder their own share of the blame.

The same source that revealed the specifics of Trank’s erratic behaviour on set also claimed that Fox had no real vision behind the Fantastic Four property, but that they were scared of losing the rights so powered ahead anyway, even thought they clearly weren’t ready. By the time the studio realized that there issues with the movie, it was too late. Instead of providing Trank with the support he needed to complete the film, his opinions were supposedly discounted in favour of rushed last minutes rewrites of the final act.

Whether these claims are true or not, it’s obvious to anyone paying attention that last minute reshoots certainly had an impact on the quality of the final product. Scenes from the trailer that didn’t make it into the official release lend credence to the claim that three key action set pieces were removed during these last minute changes and were are least partially responsible for the uneven tone of the film.

And then there’s the horrendous wig that Kate Mara wears intermittently throughout. Forget Dr. Doom. That’s the real monster of this story.