Tag Archives: brad bird

The Chronicle of Fantastic Four

The suits at 20th Century Fox has finally announced what we’ve pretty much known since January:

Josh Trank has been hired to direct the reboot of Fantastic Four.  (remember when Galactus was a cloud?)

Meh.

Josh Trank directed Chronicle.  A found footage superhero teen movie that cost very little, but made around 50 million.  I guess they are hoping that he extrapolates Chronicle’s success to a larger scale.

For this film I think the director is virtually interchangeable.  Just get someone who isn’t a moron to write the film and a capable cast.  Trank is so new to directing that I doubt he’ll bring anything good or bad to the table.  However, they need to get someone who knows how to write a family to make this film work.

In a perfect world, I’d like to see Brad Bird just direct it.  Yeah he did The Incredibles already, but after seeing M:I: Ghost Protocol, he can do grand scale.  I also want this movie being released by Disney.  They’d nail this film.

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Stuff of Legend & Disney’s Hunt for Male Demo

Disney for the last 5 years or so has been doing everything it can to get it’s hands on the elusive young male demographic.  You know those guys that go see explosion the movie, or play Call of Duty: Future War (that’s a good idea for a game and I want full credit).   They made Prince of Persia and Sorcerer’s Apprentice, and those were both terrible bombs.  Then they went and bought Marvel, and rebranded Toon Disney to be more of a young males network, somehow turned Tron: Legacy into a 400 million worldwide earner, and made Avengers the most awesome popcorn film maybe ever made.  Despite the bombing of John Carter, they are now playing with house money and can take some chances.

The graphic novel The Stuff of Legend, I have not read, but it sounds like the perfect project for Disney to adapt into film.  It centers on a young boy, who in the 1940’s gets dragged into “scary Narnia” by The Boogeyman.  His dog and his toys then go into that realm called “The Dark” to rescue him.  When they enter that realm however, they transform into larger more threatening, weaponized versions of themselves.  Like I said I have not read the book, but I will probably pick it up this week, cause this sounds like the kind of dark stuff that Hollywood has shied away from over the years.  In the right hands this can be something special.  In the wrong hands however this can be a nightmare.

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