Max Landis Just Fixed One Of Fantastic Four's Biggest Problems

If you follow screenwriter Max Landis on Twitter, you'll know he's a bit of a renegade. Opinionated, eccentric but also refreshingly candid without placing his career in jeopardy. Well, in typical Landis style (i.e no warning) he's made public the first sequence from his personal Fantastic Four draft of some years ago. Surprisingly, in just a few pages he addresses one of the current iteration's biggest weaknesses. I never intend to sound cruel, and I appreciate we don't know the full story of the film's hellish production, but it's safe to say Josh Trank's recently maligned version did a poor job of creating a team or familial dynamic between the titular quartet. They spend the entire movie as really separate, undefined entities, with only facile connections to one another. Then in the dying moments, thanks to a rushed speech from Miles Teller's Reed Richards, they form a bond. Onscreen it's totally unconvincing, and prevents the movie from attaining the emotional catharsis it's stretching (sorry) for. The Landis pages give off a very different vibe. They're a cold open, a slight action scene with the Fantastic Four off-screen and surrounded by angry FBI types. We only hear the gang's voices, but in them there's a sense of identity, personality and levity. As the various character's bounce off each other we get a sense of their positioning, Reed as the bumbling leader, Johnny as the outspoken little brother and Sue as a calm, nurturing intellect. Trank's film often tell us that's who these characters are, but it never executes the archetypes satisfactorily in dialogue or action. On these pages they're vulnerable to the natural conflicts and are in possession of the required bonds which define families. https://twitter.com/Uptomyknees/status/630794909176303617 Of course scripts are just the basis for movies, and production is an arduous path. Maybe Trank's script also read warmer on the page, but found itself stymied by internal disputes and turbulent development. It also pays to remember that Landis posted just four pages, and his over-arching story might be a total trainwreck. But I gotta say, the snippet provided makes me want to read on. On a side-note, anybody feeling that maybe it's in slightly bad taste for Landis to be doing this? He and Trank have an awkward history despite their collaboration on Chronicle (Trank directed from a Landis script), and it's only been a few days since Fantastic Four capitulated at the box-office. Should Landis have waited a little longer? Let us know your thoughts on this, and the script below. Fantastic Four is in cinemas now.