When it comes to adapting a classic comic book to the screen, if at first you don’t succeed, make a controversial reboot. And if you still don’t succeed, just give up entirely, right? That seems to be what everybody assumed would happen after Fox’s latest attempt at adapting Fantastic Four turned out to be one of the worst reviewed comic book movies of all time, not to mention one of biggest financial failures earning only $160 million off a budget of $120 million (and that’s before factoring in marketing costs) despite an incredibly talented cast.
This prompted a recent rumour that Fox were actually scrapping their already greenlit Fantastic Four sequel and would instead focus on a quick turnaround for a sequel to the currently in-development Deadpool comic book adaptation which has received nothing but universal praise for every piece of marketing released thus far.
Turns out that rumour is only half true as writer-producer Simon Kinberg surprisingly admitted to Collider that a Fantastic Four sequel is still on the cards irrespective of the first film’s rotten reception.
“I’m really focused on the next one …We’re figuring out what that movie would be… I do believe there is a great ’Fantastic Four’ movie that we’ve made with that cast. So I’m gonna figure out what that is … I’d like that to happen.”
Of course part of that figuring out, will be analyzing just what went wrong on the first movie. The film was mired in controversy from the start due to unpopular casting, as well as rumours about director Josh Trank’s unruly on-set behaviour. Coupled with utterly ridiculous studio meddling that saw the bit of good that Trank had done completely hamstrung, it was no wonder that audiences found the final result to be a mess. But that hasn’t dissuaded Kinberg who realizes that in life sometimes you win some, sometimes you lose some.
“I was obviously disappointed. I was most disappointed that fans didn’t like it. I care more about them than I do anyone else. But I haven’t done a full deep dive on it. Do I think it was unfairly treated? I don’t know.”
“I’ve been on plenty of happy movies that don’t turn out to be very good movies, I’ve been on a lot of unhappy, difficult sets that turn out to be great movies,” he said. “There was a lot of attention on the process of making that movie. It’s hard, when you’re making a movie, movies are hard to make. It’s just the reality.”
I did say that the previously mentioned rumour was only half true, and seeing as the Fantastic Four part just got shot down, that must mean that Fox are already working on a Deadpool sequel. Speaking to Collider again, Kinberg confirmed that a followup to the X-Men spinoff is indeed in the works.
“We certainly are talking about the sequel—we were talking about the sequel while we were making the movie just because when you make a film like this that’s from a serialized source material, you hope that it’s the first of many… But yeah [Fox is] feeling good about it, we’re all feeling really proud of it, so hopefully before it comes out we will be well into the process of figuring out a sequel.”
Just what that sequel would be about has certainly not been worked out officially yet, but if you’re a comic book fan then you know that there’s a certain time-travelling mutant that plays a rather important role in Deadpool’s story: Cable – the telekinetic alternate future timeline son of Cyclops and a clone of Jean Grey.
“It’s certainly come up because [Cable’s] such a big character in the world. And it’s a character that I’ve always wanted to do in one form or another, we talked about Cable actually in Days of Future Past at one point. But yeah we’re in such the early stages of sequel talk it would be genuinely premature for me to say whether or not he was gonna be in it.”
Kinberg also went on to state that we shouldn’t be too worried about the studio trying to undermine Deadpool like it did Fantastic Four, despite the former’s very family-unfriendly tone.
“I have seen a rough cut of Deadpool and it’s fantastic. It’s a really good movie. It delivers on the promise of the trailer… We’re really committed and leaned into it being R-rated. It’s just darker and edgier and weirder in the best way—like Deadpool should be—than any other movie in the genre.”
Deadpool stars Ryan Reynolds as the Merc With the Mouth and is scheduled for release in February next year. The Fantastic Four sequel has previously been penciled in for release on June 9, 2017, but we’ll have to wait and see if it actually hits that mark. Or if it, you know, still sucks.
Last Updated: September 16, 2015
