Although 20th Century Fox won’t be participating at this year’s Comic-Con, the studio has some good and bad news for Marvel fans who are hoping to see their favorite comic book heroes, ‘Fantastic Four’ and ‘Daredevil,’ on the big screen.
‘Fantastic Four:’
First the good news! It looks like Josh Trank (‘Chronicle’) will now be officially directing the reboot of the ‘Fantastic Four.’ Rumors of his involvement began in January when it was reported that Fox had him on their shortlist of directors to helm the film. At the time, Trank admitted that he hadn’t even been approached by Fox with the project. Then in April, Fox CEO Tom Rothman announced that Trank would indeed be involved in the project and would “work on a take, or a vision, that he has for it” but was not signed on to direct. Now it looks like the courtship was successful and Fox has won Trank over to direct.
The film will feature a new cast and a new take on the characters. With a release date (which has not yet been revealed) already slated, the film is on the books to be the next Marvel project to go into production following the ‘The Wolverine’ and the sequel for ‘X-Men: First Class.’ That means this will probably be the next film that Trank will be working on pushing back production for ‘Shadow of the Colossus,’ ‘Venom,’ and ‘The Red Star.’
‘Daredevil:’
While ‘Fantastic Four’ was able to sign on a director, ‘Daredevil’ lost theirs as David Slade (‘The Twilight Sage: Eclipse,’ ‘Awake’) had to bow out of the project. Apparently Slade is still directing the pilot of the series ‘Hannibal’ and the timing conflicts with the schedule for the movie.
Normally this wouldn’t be a big deal, but in an agreement with Marvel, if Fox doesn’t start production on the film by the fall, rights to the character will revert back to Marvel. The studio has a script that they finally like after hiring David James Kelly to do rewrites but now the scramble begins with the job of not only looking for a new director, but also finding a cast, scouting out locations and building sets before their contract is up.
Is this the end of the “Man Without Fear” reboot? Not necessarily. Although Fox isn’t pushing the ‘Daredevil’ reboot quite as hard as ‘Fantastic Four,’ they may not want to relinquish their hold on the ‘Daredevil’ rights. However, if the character does go back to Marvel, Disney may decide to pick it up and go through with the movie if the script is as good as Fox believes.
You can bet that we’ll be watching the development of this movie closely.