20th century fox have made progress with their planned reboot of the Fantastic Four franchise. The films which were only recently released (2005 and 2007) were moderatly seuccesful at the box office but garnered mostly negative reviews (once again studios utilising toy marketing cash in to force parents to take their children to the latest fad movie, why everyone goes for the widest audience rating possible) so now the film is being "re-imagined by producer Akiva Goldsman (Hancock, Constantine) as a "darker, grittier version". Michael Green (Heroes, Smallville) will write.
Batman Begins, the Bourne films, both are superb and both have kickstarted a trend for producers and directors to have their films taken more seriously without losing box office returns. More and more films are going down this route and finally cinema goers aren't being treated like spoon fed morons any more but this kind of thing still annoys me. Too many film-makers who didn't have the balls to make films of this nature now spout rhetoric about "being true" to their material by rooting it in grim reality. No more so than the rebooted Bond movies. Let us not forget that bond was an overblown, cheesy, unbelievable mess of a series that was specifically churned out to please fans and make a steady box office return every time. Bond had long since expired from its time as an exciting and entertaining series of films and it's leads had grown more and more tiresome (hell even Roger Moore was entertainment back then). So rather than create and deliver something of their own imagination they piggy backed onto something another, truer film-maker took the initiative to do first.
In short, no Bourne, no new Bond, no Batman Begins, No new Fantastic Four. This is noting we didn't know before but it just annoys the hell out of me when producers and directors release press docs stating their desire to make films of this nature when they were perfectly happy for years releasing the same old mindless popcorn drivel year after year with zero desire to step outside of the safe zone, terrified of losing profits of any kind, actuley aware that a majority of their projects did not hold water. These filmakers want to project the image that their intention is to make films with integrity and stay true to the spirit of the project while respecting the audience but its far from the truth. Realism is very cool and very accepted now in film (it always was but we rarely had it delivered at the blockbuster level) but i tell you, if films in the style of the awful Transformers sequel were in vogue and cool right now then the new Fantastic Four reboot would be touted as a "Bigger, bolder, more action oriented" movie experience. Don't believe the shit.
Rant over, for now.
Thursday, 3 September 2009