The Fantastic Four, one of Marvel Comics’ premier superhero teams, hasn’t had a very bright and shiny run in the realm of film. Between a passable pair of films in the early 2000s with Fantastic Four and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, and a 2015 attempt that’s better left unspoken about, the posse of Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Woman, The Thing, and Human Torch never quite found their footing on the big screen.
And with Marvel Studios set to give the team a fourth go for a film (admittedly, the fourth Fantastic Four movie sticking the landing would be gleefully poetic), the most decorated detectives available on r/marvelstudios have taken it upon themselves to identify what it is about the previous films that prevented them from soaring.
One user kicked off a thread by pointing fingers at none other than Reed Richards. The user argued that Mr. Fantastic’s stretchy superpowers are too awkward and strange-looking to effectively translate to the big screen in a way that can be taken seriously.
But not everyone was on board with this assessment, noting how creative the writers and choreographers could get with power like Richards’.
Another responder pointed to the poor handling of the property for the lack of success, with another user chiming in that Mr. Fantastic’s entire, two-minute screen time he’s had in the MCU thus far was a better example of the character than any of the Fantastic Four films.
Another user even suggested that, in the case of the first two films, they came out in a time before superheroes became Hollywood’s golden geese, and there wasn’t as much creative support for these kinds of movies.
We won’t be seeing the MCU’s Fantastic Four film until November 8, 2024, so there’s still some time to figure out where Marvel Studios can succeed where the other films didn’t. Frankly, however, it may just be best to rest assured that they’ll get it right this time around (again, fourth time’s the charm!).