Following two botched adaptations and three middling movies in the space of 10 years, it’s fair to say that the Fantastic Four – Marvel’s First Family, no less – have fallen on hard times.
And yet, despite damning reviews, the Powers That Be over at 20th Century Fox are plotting a new, “kid-friendly” version of the Fantastic Four, along with a Doctor Doom spinoff movie to boot. It’s part of the studio’s strategy to keep a hold on the IP’s film rights, lest they revert back to Marvel a la Blade. Plus, now that those tentative plans for a sequel to Josh Trank’s 2015 reboot have been scrapped altogether, Fox is in need of a drastic new approach if it’s to make the Fantastic Four relevant once again. And the studio may well find the answers it’s looking for within the pages of Mark Millar and Curtis Tiegs’s Kindergarten Heroes.
First announced in 2012, the children’s book never actually made it to print, though it was earmarked for a big-screen adaptation four years ago. Alas, those plans never materialized, but Bleeding Cool is reporting today that Fox may kill two birds with the one stone by basing its latest Fantastic Four redo on Kindergarten Heroes.
File this one in the rumor cabinet for now, but as we alluded to before, it would seem Fox has folded its initial Kindergarten Heroes adaptation into the Fantastic Four kids movie, one that’s currently being written by former Flashpoint director, Seth Grahame-Smith. Neither Mark Millar nor Curtis Tiegs offered any response to today’s report, but we’ll update this article if and when that situation changes.
The kid-friendly Fantastic Four has officially entered the formative stages of development over at Fox, so don’t expect any firm updates for quite some time. Nevertheless, on the topic of today’s allegations, what do you make of an FF movie based on Kindergarten Heroes? Do let us know.