If you went to see the new Fantastic Four movie this weekend then you probably were in a theater that had a good amount of empty seats. I’m writing this on Sunday and so far the movie has brought in about $26.2 Million, which makes it number two behind Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation. The total so far isn’t including over seas, but if it does make the budget back it won’t be making much of a profit. People complain about superhero fatigue but with Ant-Man, a relativity unknown character, pulling $57 Million on it’s opening weekend you have start looking at who’s making these films.
The Fantastic Four has all the elements of being turned into a great movie, but if scripts are written then overwritten by studio executives then movies will turn out the same way Fantastic Four did. Market research is great for certain products but not established ones such as comic book characters, don’t forget that these characters have been given monthly scripts that sell since their inception.
It’s obvious that Fox may hit gold here and there with the X-Men movies, but Spider-man has been through some tough times and is now on it’s third reboot. Marvel Studios is now stepping in to help out just so that they can share characters before they run it into the ground and I feel it’s time that Fox just gives the rights back to Marvel for good. Let Marvel give the Fantastic Four story they need with no clouds named Galactus, no new origin stories, call the negative zone the negative zone and never having Thing working for the government as a weapon. I think they should do the same thing they’re doing with Spider-Man, where they comes in as established characters and you get maybe a small mention of a back story. Bryan Singer was doing well with the X-Men movies he directed, but with the look of Apocalypse in the upcoming movie, it looks like the studios may be stepping in again and messing things up. It’s only a matter of time until the X-Men movies take a similar walk to Marvel Studios