craiyon logo

Men in suits sitting around a conference table looking at a presentation screen with 20th Century Fox logo.

Men in suits sitting around a conference table looking at a presentation screen with 20th Century Fox logo.

After the critical and commercial failure of 20th Century Fox's 2015 film Fantastic Four, co-written and directed by Josh Trank and based on the Marvel Comics superhero team the Fantastic Four, Fox began looking at new directions to take the franchise. Having also produced two earlier Fantastic Four films directed by Tim Story a decade prior, the studio did not want to just make another Fantastic Four film.[49] By June 2017, Seth Grahame-Smith was writing a new film that would shift focus to Franklin and Valeria Richards, the children of the original Fantastic Four leaders Reed Richards / Mister Fantastic and Sue Storm / Invisible Woman. Taking inspiration from the comic book series Ultimate Fantastic Four (2004–2009), the screenplay included original Fantastic Four members Ben Grimm / The Thing and Johnny Storm / Human Torch, and was described as kid-centric with a tone closer to the animated film The Incredibles (2004) than Trank's darker film.[50] The basis of Grahame-Smith's screenplay came from a separate script that Carter Blanchard had written as an adaptation of the unpublished children's book Kindergarten Heroes by Mark Millar. Millar previously consulted with Fox on their Marvel-based films.[51] In July 2017, Noah Hawley, the creator of the Marvel Television series Legion (2017–2019), was hired to develop a separate film focused on Victor von Doom / Doctor Doom, the Fantastic Four's primary antagonist in the comics and previous films.[49] The Walt Disney Company Voir plus