Kevin Feige Claims 'Fantastic Four' Film Will Launch Marvel "Into A New Era"
Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige shared his hope that the upcoming Fantastic Four film will launch Marvel “into a new era.”
Speaking to Empire about the upcoming film, Feige first noted how important the Fantastic Four are to Marvel, “I think that there are no four characters that are more important for the history of Marvel.”
Next, he shared that he hopes to use these important characters to launch Marvel into a new era, “When Disney bought Fox, it was really an unexpected dream come true. It came at the perfect time, to help us launch into a new era. They are Marvel’s First Family, and I really wanted to do them justice.”
While the film will indeed likely launch Marvel into a new era given it will be followed up by Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars, which the Fantastic Four will be involved in, it’s unclear if that new era will actually be an improvement or not. Additionally, it’s unclear how much different this new era will really be compared to the old one.
There are plenty of signals that this film will follow the trend that Marvel Studios has created over the last half decade by pushing a feminist agenda. The film’s director Matt Shakman hinted at this while also speaking to Empire revealing that Sue Storm is the leader of the Fantastic Four. He described her as an “inspiring idealistic, leader of what the Fantastic Four represents, as she is in some of the later comic runs.” He also claimed she is “essentially the Secretary-General of the UN.”
Actress Vanessa Kirby, who plays Sue Storm, also told Entertainment Weekly the film would be exploring gender politics and given the film is being set in this kind of ‘60s retrofuturism, it’s not hard to imagine the type of feminism that will explored.
Kirby said, “If you played an exact '60s Sue today, everyone would think she was a bit of a doormat. So figuring out how to capture the essence of what she represented to each generation, where the gender politics were different, and embody that today, was one of the greatest joys of this."
Kirby also added in the interview, “One of the things I love most from Sue's history is when she becomes Malice, and all her dark stuff comes out. I was obsessed with that chapter of her life. So I wanted to make sure that there were tones of Malice in there with her, that she wasn't just the stereotype of a goody, sweet mother."
“I've always been really interested in the mess of femininity, and how can you be both? How can you be all the things? Not just the tough, invincible, powerful woman, but also a mother who gives birth, which is itself a superhero act,” she continued. “I love that these characters are real humans in a messy family who argue and try to work it out and get things wrong."
The film has also sex-swapped Silver Surfer with actress Julia Garner playing the character. Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Garner shared that she was surprised she was cast as a sex-swapped Silver Surfer given she knew the character was male. “We met up at some restaurant in Burbank or something, I don't even remember, but I knew it was for the Fantastic Four,” Garner shared. “And then I was confused because I was like, ‘Wait, isn't the Silver Surfer a man?’ I was just like, ‘Okay, well, I'll play anything.’"
Garner also claimed that the movie was going to be different than other movies, but that her character was literally just a sex-swapped Norrin Radd. She said, “I knew who the Silver Surfer was, and I got to know the Silver Surfer more when I signed on to the project. I really dived in. I read a lot of the Fantastic Four and Silver Surfer comics before starting the project, and I knew that this Fantastic Four was going to be told in a very different way than even the other movies.”
As for her character Shalla-Bal she shared, “She is the herald of Galactus, so she works for Galactus, but you're not sure where she stands. Does she stand with her boss, or is she just doing what she's told? She has this mysterious energy about her, and slowly that mystery will get solved with the audience throughout watching it.”
When specifically asked what was different from other live-action Silver Surfers she said, “What makes this version different is that the movie is just different. First of all, I'm a woman, so that's already different, and that hasn't been told before. This Silver Surfer feels more mysterious in a way, even how it was written, than the other ones. Also, just the world feels so different with the 1960s retro futurism going on. The audience is going to get a completely different experience with this movie, so they'll have a clean palette.”
On top of all of this, the film is being described as mediocre and mid following a recent test screening. Jeff Sneider at TheInsneider shared that a source informed him that the movie is “Not that bad, but not that good either.”
Sneider’s source was not the only one to indicate the film is mediocre. X user Cryptic4KQual shared, “Hearing it's ok, not bad, it's good. Hmmmmmm.”
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Scooper and commentator Grace Randolph also shared that she believes Marvel is “a little bit nervous about the film.”
Randolph also shared similar sentiments to the reports from Sneider, Cryptic, and Indulge Express regarding the test screening. She said, “I heard that the people who saw the screening, they didn’t hate it, to be clear, but they didn’t love it. And, apparently, from what I heard, from a source that I trust they were pretty vocal at the test screening. …. I heard that, you know, let’s just say that any executives who were at the test screening didn’t need to look at the comment cards to find out that the audience thought the movie was medium. Let’s just put it that way.”
She even added, “They might have shouted out ‘Mid!’ … One or two people might have said it and then maybe someone might have heard it.”
What do you make of Feige’s comments?
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Same hype every movie-failure.
Changes nothing.
Woke people think that by just claiming something, it is so: gender; sexuality; racism; beauty... Remember that Lucifer claimed, "I will be just like God." And how did that work out for him?
Woke failure breeds woke failure. Don't consume; you're not missing out.
Progressives want the revolution today. Sue Richards being the leader is the end of a three or four movie arc. Not the start. You need a movie with the akward and unsure Invisible Girl who grows into the Invisible Woman. And I remember she soloed everyone in the civil war shutting it down. At the end of the story. But they can't show a weak woman.