New Fantastic Four Movie Bombs At Box Office

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‘Fantastic Four’ Director Josh Trank Disses His Movie, Implies Studio Screwed it Up



This looked like crap the minute I saw the first trailer, I refused to watch this. I told all my friends the ones made in the 2000s were both way better. Looks like I was right.

Director Josh Trank suggested on Thursday that he wasn’t responsible for the final cut of Fantastic Four, which has been widely panned by critics prior to its opening on Friday.

“A year ago I had a fantastic version of this. And it would’ve received great reviews,” the filmmaker wrote on Twitter. “You’ll probably never see it. That’s reality though.”

The tweet was quickly deleted from his account.

A spokesman for 20th Century Fox could not be reached for comment.

Fantastic Four, starring Miles Teller, Kate Mara, Jamie Bell and Michael B. Jordan, has only a 9% fresh rating on RottenTomatoes. Variety critic Brian Lowry wrote that the film “feels like a protracted teaser for a more exciting follow-up…that might never happen.”

Costing $120 million to produce, Fantastic Four is expected to debut to $40 million at the box office this weekend.

Trank, who last directed Chronicle for Fox, abruptly left one of Disney’s upcoming Star Wars spin-offs earlier this year over creative differences.

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Weekend Report - 'Fantastic Four' Gets Clobbered - Box Office Mojo

Fox's Fantastic Four got a Thing-like pummeling at the box office with a $26.2M first outing, allowing Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation to take #1 for the second weekend in a row with $29.4M.

Fantastic's $6,558 take per screen underwhelmed across the board and it doesn't look like the Josh Trank-directed film has any hopes of turning things around. The film earned a dismal "C-" Cinemascore, a very low grade for what is supposed to be a summer blockbuster. Pixels, for heaven's sake, earned a "B."

As for Fantastic Four one has to go back to 2012 for a film associated with the Marvel comics brand, which is different but comprises the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the Sony Spider-Man and Fox films, to find a Marvel film opening so poorly.

Fantastic Four can make the ignominious claim of having opened better than Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, which had a $22.1M weekend in 2012, limping towards a $51M domestic cume. But Four opened lower than Blade 2 at $32.5M in 2002 ($45.5 adjusted using Q1 2015 prices), which had some legs, and had an $82.3M domestic cume. The Thing had better have massive overseas appeal or Fantastic Four will have to be registered as a write-off.

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Weekend Report -'Compton' Another Universal Smash - Box Office Mojo

Fox's Fantastic Four took another shot to the Trank with a 68% dropoff from its feeble $26.2M opening for $8M in 4,004 theaters, $1,998 per screen. As far as biggest, 2nd-week drop offs for Marvel-themed films it's worse than Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, which dropped 65.5% its second weekend and nearly took the title away from 2005's Elektra and 2009's X-Men Origins: Wolverine, both with 69% and the Marvel, face-plant champ, 2003's Hulk, with 69.7%.

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Fantastic Four 2 Disappears From Fox Release Schedule - IGN

20th Century Fox has removed Fantastic Four 2 from its schedule.

The news comes from Box Office Mojo, which notes that its old release date - June 9th, 2017 - has disappeared just months after Fox's fourth failed stab at the Marvel franchise.

In other 20th Century Fox news, its adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express is now due to hit theaters November 11th, 2017. This will be the fourth major film or TV adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express, and is set to be directed by Kenneth Branagh, the Marvel movie veteran behind Thor.

Whether Fox retains any plans for Marvel's first family is unclear. Currently, their contract with Marvel and Disney requires that they continue producing movies with those characters. Elsewise the rights revert to the comic book publisher.