Oh boy. The Hollywood Reporter has released some rumored details about some of the on set behavior of Fantastic Four director Josh Trank, and it’s not pretty. To start, just after the film was released, and was immediately trashed by critics, director Josh Trank send out the following Tweet:
That conflicts with an email he sent out to the cast and crew just prior to the release which stated that the film was “better than 99 percent of the comic-book movies ever made,” prompting a crew member to write back “I don’t think so.” The article goes on to list a laundry list of issues onset. Here are some of the highlights:
- Multiple sources associated with the project say the director did not produce material that would have opened the way to a salvageable film.
- He resisted help from the studio. ”He holed up in a tent and cut himself off from everybody. He built a black tent around his monitor. He was extremely withdrawn.” Between setups, “he would go to his trailer and he wouldn’t interact with anybody.”
- He pushed a gloomy tone on young stars Miles Teller, Michael B. Jordan, Kate Mara and Jamie Bell. “During takes, he would be telling [castmembers] when to blink and when to breathe,” one person says. “He kept pushing them to make the performance as flat as possible.”
- “During takes, he would be telling [castmembers] when to blink and when to breathe. He kept pushing them to make the performance as flat as possible.”
- “Trank and his dogs allegedly caused more than $100,000 worth of damage to a rented house in Baton Rouge that he and his wife occupied while the film was shooting there, prompting landlord Martin Padial to evict Trank. Padial made a complaint to the local sheriff’s department and even filed a civil suit.
- A crew member on the film said the movie was “ill-conceived, made for the wrong reasons and there was no vision behind the property. Say what you will about Marvel but they have a vision.”
- The studio was “afraid of losing the rights so they pressed forward and didn’t surround [Trank] with help or fire him. They buried their heads in the sand.”
- Apparently there was discussions o firing Trank before production began, but Fox trusted him “because he had directed the studio’s 2012 found-footage hero movie Chronicle.” Based on that, “insiders say Fox executives thought they had found an ‘in-house director,’ a young talent who could become another J.J. Abrams.”
I think it’s safe to say Trank will be blacklisted for a while. It’s also safe to say that this will likely lead to Marvel getting the rights back to Fantastic Four at some point. It’s also possible that being this is the fourth crappy Fantastic Four film, they may just give the hell up on the franchise.