Fox are currently waiting to see whether X-Men: First Class is succesful or not before going full steam ahead on a Fantastic Four reboot. I am not too sure what the logic is behind that as the X-Men: First Class movie set in the 1960′s with lots of mutants is a bit different to Marvel’s First Family (more on the X-Men First Class plans here).
Still, it is their money and Fox are sticking to it. Personally they should go with Warren Ellis’ take on The Four in Planetary and have them as the bad guys…basically just make a series of Planetary movies and then everything would be right in the World. I digress.
Unsurprisingly casting rumours have begun to emerge. Big names for Reed Richards aka Mr Fantastic and Susan Storm aka The Invisible Woman and not so big names for Johnny Storm aka The Human Torch. The Thing is going to be CGI so they will probably be after for motion capture and a voice or possibly one for the motion and one for the voice (Andy Serkis’s mo cap senses must be going wild at that one).
First up we have Mr Fantastic. Ioan Gruffudd played him in the first two and he wasn’t that bad. I just felt he never came across as the incredible, almost otherworldly, intellect that he is in the comics. That was mainly due to the scripts.
The rumour for today is via Screen Rant who mention two actors – Adrien Brody (Predators, The Pianist, King Kong, Splice) and Jonathan Rhys Meyers (M:I 4, Shelter, The Tudors, From Paris With Love). I can’t really see either as Reed Richards, but if I had to choose I would go with Brody as he has a bit more maturity and I just prefer him over Rhys Meyers.
In a perfect world I could see someone who looked like George Clooney or Jon Hamm playing Reed or maybe True Blood’s Stephen Moyer, Tim Robbins, Paul Bettany, the guy from Office Space or how about Shane Carruth from Primer?
Next up we have The Invisible Woman. Previously played by Jessica Alba who I felt just didn’t work right at all (sure she looked good, but just wasn’t the right choice) CBM have the rumour that Amber Heard (The Ward, Zombieland) is the current favourite although Alice Eve is being considered since she is no longer starring in the X-Men movie. Out of those two I would have to go with Eve as she has the right look for the part. I am sure someone can photoshop can whack an FF uniform on the picture to the left (would be great if they turned her into Malice though!)
I suppose with both Reed and Sue it depends upon the age they set them as.
Other choices that I could see working or probably failing miserably (although some would also need to get their hair dyed) – Elizabeth Banks would do a stupendous job of it in my opinion, Christina Hendricks (would be good if Jon Hamm was Reed), Alicia Witt, Anna Torv (Fringe), Charlize Theron, Miranda Otto, Naomi Watts, Rachel McAdams and Reese Witherspoon.
That is the main news.
Rumours for Johnny Storm are Kevin Pennington (90210). I’ve never seen his work but he keeps being rumoured for various comic book movies.
Chris Evans did a good job as the Human Torch in the first two movies, but he has graduated to Captain America.
I can see Fox going with which ever young male actor is hot at the time they finally cast the film. Ideas as to who I could see playing Johnny are Ryan Kwanten (True Blood), Chris Pine (Star Trek), Garrett Hedlund (Tron Legacy) or anyone else who auditioned for the role of Captain America.
The voice of Ben Grimm – Adam Baldwin (Firefly, Chuck), Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Kevin Conroy (Batman), Ed Asner, Michael Wincott.
When you get down to it all of this is just one big rumour with no basis as to what we will see in the final movie. All of the ones I have picked are just that, my choice.
In an ideal would, if they had a great script, what would be your ideal casting choice for the Fantastic Four? Should Doom be the villain again? Who could play him to get it right?
