Ok we are doing
this again, eh? First rumour:
Comic Book Movie say
Joe Carnahan (who just dropped the ball with The A-Team at Fox),
David Yates (last few Harry Potter's) and visual effects expert but rather lifeless storyteller
James McTeigue (Ninja Assassin, V For Vendetta) are the front-runners to direct the
Fantastic Four reboot at 20th Century Fox, which will go in front of 3D camera's next summer for a 2012 release. Hmmm. Do I really need to say this scoop should be taken with giant sized, handfuls of salt? More than likely, this is a highly exaggerated story from CBM (seriously, how many actually come true, less than 3% annually???) who we should not forget, once had
Britney Spears pegged for a role in
X-Men: First Class - and going through these names one by one, they become pretty easy to scratch off. Carnahan won't be getting a big budget blockbuster at Fox for a while after he killed what seemed like a 'print your own money' financial goldmine in
The A-Team. McTeigue has just made a deal to direct
John Cusack as
Edgar Allan Poe in an adaptation of The Raven which should keep him busy for the most of 2011, so you can almost be sure to erase his name. Yates is a possibility, I suppose - as he should be done with the post-production work on
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II by then but is this really the caliber they are going for? Of course he is a level above previous franchise helmer
Tim Story (who isn't?) but he's not a name that inspires much confidence in this reboot. My take? The whole thing is either completely fabricated, or has been put together on the slightest of confirmations. Some guy, somewhere on the food chain mentioning three directors who might be on a list of a dozen, or more at Fox.
Second rumour:
Screen Rant say
Bruce Willis and
Kiefer Sutherland - two big contracted Fox stars from the
Die Hard and
24 franchises respectively, are vying to voice the all CGI- The Thing/Ben Grimm. The probability of a one scene flashback cameo in human form is likely (well, if you are paying deals for either guy that would make sense). But as I always say with actor casting for these big comic book projects - how many of them have ANY actor attached before a director has come on board? ZERO! Willis as Grimm is kinda spot on casting though right? Is there a comic book role that more suits the actor?? I may have to change my FF fantasy casting
from a few weeks back. Just sayin'.