Did you catch Fantastic Four earlier this year? Probably not considering the fact that it pretty much tanked at the box office, once again putting the future of the franchise in question. In the wake of Fantastic Four’s less than stellar debut, many assumed that the sequel would likely miss its previously announced 2017 release date before ultimately collapsing entirely. However, 20th Century Fox remained adamant about honoring those plans until earlier this week when Fantastic Four 2 mysteriously disappeared from the studio’s release schedule.
The reasons for Fox’s decision to officially remove the sequel from their schedule remains uncertain, according to ComicBook.com, meaning the studio could possibly be delaying the project while devising a "strategy" for how to keep the Fantastic Four franchise alive. However, that seems unlikely. Shortly after the film immediately started to underwhelm in theaters, director Josh Trank took to Twitter to revive previously reported tensions during the film's production that he suggests ultimately resulted in a far inferior film:
As more details of the apparently doomed film started to emerge, Entertainment Weekly eventually decided to deliver some investigative reporting on who exactly was to blame for the project's seemingly inevitable failure. As it turns out, both the issue of blame here is pretty complicated:
"Some who worked on the film say Trank broke, for sure, but was driven to the breaking point by the studio, and that his clash was not with Kinberg but Fox production president Emma Watts. According to several individuals who worked on the movie, the studio delayed casting and script approvals, slashed the budget by tens of millions from what was originally promised during the development phase, and tried to force last-minute script changes to the film just as principal photography was beginning."
Stop trying to make Fantastic Four (the movie) happen. It's apparently not going to happen.
