Home Entertainment New FANTASTIC FOUR international trailer! Plus, Micheal B. Jordan responds to racial backlash

New FANTASTIC FOUR international trailer! Plus, Micheal B. Jordan responds to racial backlash

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To borrow a popular bit of Internet jargon: Inb4 you tell me this is the same trailer we saw a few weeks ago. Yes, this new international trailer for Fox’s upcoming reboot is mostly the same footage as the last one, but now we get some additional scenes showing off more of the team using their powers in action. And they look, well, fantastic!

FANTASTIC FOUR, a contemporary re-imagining of Marvel’s original and longest-running superhero team, centers on four young outsiders who teleport to an alternate and dangerous universe, which alters their physical form in shocking ways. Their lives irrevocably upended, the team must learn to harness their daunting new abilities and work together to save Earth from a former friend turned enemy.

Besides for the allegations of director Josh Trank’s unruly on-set behaviour (which more than likely cost him his Star Wars gig), the biggest controversy surrounding Fantastic Four has been the absurdly aggressive backlash that materialized when it was announced that Michel B. Jordan, a black actor, was portraying Johnny Storm, who is traditionally depicted in the comics as blond haired white guy.

To – apparently – make matters worse, this would mean that Jordan’s Johnny would only be half-siblings with the white Kate Mara’s Susan Storm. Because you will happily accept that a man can become a walking rockslide or that another can stretch like a warmed up Fizzer sweet, but a mixed race family? That’s just pushing plausibility too damn far!

Up until now, the very talented young actor had mostly refused to speak about it, previously saying that it wasn’t worth dignifying the ceaseless vitriol and internet trolling that has been thrown is way. But now Jordan is addressing it, in a very dignified open letter on EW that challenges these small-minded folks:

You’re not supposed to go on the Internet when you’re cast as a superhero. But after taking on Johnny Storm in Fantastic Four—a character originally written with blond hair and blue eyes—I wanted to check the pulse out there. I didn’t want to be ignorant about what people were saying. Turns out this is what they were saying: “A black guy? I don’t like it. They must be doing it because Obama’s president” and “It’s not true to the comic.” Or even, “They’ve destroyed it!”

It used to bother me, but it doesn’t anymore. I can see everybody’s perspective, and I know I can’t ask the audience to forget 50 years of comic books. But the world is a little more diverse in 2015 than when the Fantastic Four comic first came out in 1961. Plus, if Stan Lee writes an email to my director saying, “You’re good. I’m okay with this,” who am I to go against that?

Some people may look at my casting as political correctness or an attempt to meet a racial quota, or as part of the year of “Black Film.” Or they could look at it as a creative choice by the director, Josh Trank, who is in an interracial relationship himself—a reflection of what a modern family looks like today.

This is a family movie about four friends—two of whom are myself and Kate Mara as my adopted sister—who are brought together by a series of unfortunate events to create unity and a team. That’s the message of the movie, if people can just allow themselves to see it.

Sometimes you have to be the person who stands up and says, “I’ll be the one to shoulder all this hate. I’ll take the brunt for the next couple of generations.” I put that responsibility on myself. People are always going to see each other in terms of race, but maybe in the future we won’t talk about it as much. Maybe, if I set an example, Hollywood will start considering more people of color in other prominent roles, and maybe we can reach the people who are stuck in the mindset that “it has to be true to the comic book.” Or maybe we have to reach past them.

To the trolls on the Internet, I want to say: Get your head out of the computer. Go outside and walk around. Look at the people walking next to you. Look at your friends’ friends and who they’re interacting with. And just understand this is the world we live in. It’s okay to like it.

Well freaking said.

Fantastic Four also stars Miles Teller, Jamie Bell, Tobie Kebbell and Reg E. Cathey. It is scheduled for release on August 7, 2015.

Last Updated: May 25, 2015

5 Comments

  1. Really digging the vibe on the trailer even though we’ve seen this movie a hundred times before. Very strong cast though so hopefully it’s decent. Mr Jordan sounds like a very sensible young man who has shown tremendous maturity and restraint through all the vitriol spewed at him by trolls.

    Reply

  2. juzzlehizzle

    May 25, 2015 at 18:33

    Screw it. Jordan looks freaking awesome as the Human Torch. When he “Flames On!” that looks straight out of the comic. And he has the right sense of brash cockiness for the role.

    He’s black? So?

    It feels reductive to say “The Next Denzel” but he has that quality.

    Reply

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