10. Give Us A Cast That Works Together
Tim Storys original Fantastic Four (Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Chris Evans and Michael Chiklis) were clearly selected precisely because they looked the part. Heavyset Chiklis was a Fantastic Four fan his entire life, and lived to play Ben Grimm, while Evans and Alba made picture perfect Storm siblings. Meanwhile Gruffudd tall, mannered and scholarly looked like an ideal Reed Richards. It was the stuff movie posters are made of but not movies, sadly. Never able to flesh out the two dimensional script, Gruffudd struggled to make his Mister Fantastic authoritative or highbrow enough, while Alba, as the Invisible Woman, may have been the first actress ever to deliver a invisible performance in a film, claiming later that she was told to look pretty and do nothing else, that they could CGI the tears in later. Chiklis and Evans fared better, the former properly inhabiting the pathos of his role despite the mountain of prosthetics that he was forced to endure as The Thing, while the laters perfect comic instincts made his Human Torch the instant standout, and the primary reason to rewatch the films. Interestingly, Josh Trank has elected to go for a younger cast that you wouldnt necessarily earmark as the characters theyre playing at first glance. Hes previously worked with Michael B. Jordan in Chronicle, and both Jordan and Miles Teller (cast as the Human Torch and Mister Fantastic, respectively) are highly respected young actors who worked together last year in That Awkward Moment. Meanwhile, Kate Mara is already a veteran of television and ensemble cast movies, last seen by most in Netflixs huge hit House Of Cards. Jamie Bell will bring experience in motion capture when portraying The Thing, learned from the great Andy Serkis and through his work on Spielbergs The Adventures Of Tintin. Fanboys have been vociferous about the casting of a black man as Johnny Storm while Kate Mara plays his sister Susan, but seem to have forgotten that Albas distinctively Latina heritage wasnt an issue when cast as Evans sister ten years ago. No-one would seriously hold up David Hasselhoffs Nick Fury as superior to Samuel L. Jacksons interpretation of the character, and most would agree that the late Michael Clarke Duncans portrayal of the Kingpin was one of the only decent things about the poorly received 2003 Daredevil movie. It seems that in selecting a cast famed for their acting chops and ability to work together, Trank may have already skirted the pitfalls involved in casting his heroes. Thats important, because