Thursday Murder Club director Chris Columbus has said he was fired from 20th Century Fox’s original Fantastic Four movie after suggesting concept art should feel more like the Silver Age of Marvel.
Columbus was once down to write and direct Fox’s Fantastic Four adaptation, but eventually stepped into a producing role having worked on a script in the late 90s.
In an interview with the Fade to Black podcast to promote Netflix’s The Thursday Murder Club, the Harry Potter and Home Alone director claimed that Fox told him he had “too much of an opinion.”
“We were in a weird situation,” Columbus said. “On the first Fantastic Four, I had worked on a script. There were a lot of writers involved. They were about to make the movie and we were producing it. I came in and met with the director and the producer and had some ideas.
“I basically said, ‘Some of this conceptual art should feel more like Jack Kirby, who was the artist on the Fantastic Four, and feel more like the Silver Age of Marvel.’ I left that meeting and on the way back to my house I got a call from the head of 20th Century Fox saying, ‘You’re fired. You had too much of an opinion.’”
Columbus went on to earn an executive producer credit on Fox’s Fantastic Four movies, but he insisted he had “nothing to do with” them.
This experience, Columbus went on to say, “probably soured me a little” from the superhero genre.
“It started a little bit with Spider-Man 2. When I saw what Sam Raimi did with Spider-Man 2, at the time I thought it was a perfect superhero movie. Then bits and pieces along the way. The first Batman films that were done, and then certainly the latest, Matt Reeves’ The Batman with Robert Pattinson, I thought was a brilliant film. I realized, I don’t have the desire to make those films anymore. People are doing it better than I could ever imagine doing it at this point in my career. And I love what’s going on with it.
“Getting fired on the Fantastic Four films probably soured me a little bit.”
Fantastic Four movies past and present are in the headlines once again now Marvel’s first family is officially part of the MCU.
2005’s Fantastic Four (which stars a young Chris Evans as the Human Torch before he would go on to play Captain America in the MCU), has a 28% rating on Rotten Tomatoes’ ‘Tomatometer,’ which means 28% of critics gave Fantastic Four a positive review. The audience score is 45%, according to Rotten Tomatoes’ ‘Popcornmeter,’ which means 45% of users rated Fantastic Four 3.5 stars or higher. Rise of the Silver Surfer fared better, with a 37% Tomatometer rating, and a 51% Popcornmeter.
According to Box Office Mojo, 2005’s Fantastic Four grossed $333.5 million at the global box office during its theatrical run, whereas Rise of the Silver Surfer made $302 million.
Ioan Gruffudd, who played Reed Richards / Mr. Fantastic, recently told Vulture they originally planned to make three Fantastic Four films, but the trilogy plan was ditched.
“The mindset was that we were going to do three, and I think the second movie was equally successful as the first and equally enjoyable for the fans,” Gruffudd said.
“I particularly loved working with Doug Jones [as the Silver Surfer] on that movie, who’s just a terrific artist and an expert in the field of movement. If you want to witness somebody bringing a character to life physically, he’s just untouchable. So there was definitely that sort of momentum, and the plan was to do three movies, but these decisions are beyond my control.”
Michael Chiklis, who played The Thing 20 years ago in both movies, recently said the release of The Fantastic Four: First Steps had sparked a reappraisal of 2005’s Fantastic Four movie and Rise of the Silver Surfer.
Speaking to Collider, Chiklis said critics got both movies wrong, and pointed to the audience reception and the money the movies made collectively at the box office as evidence that they “got a lot right.”
“There were a lot of people, I think, critically who got it wrong,” he said. “They really maligned our films, and they were very underrated considering… they were very loved by the audience. It was one of those cases where critics weren’t great to those films, but the audience was, and that still remains.”
According to Chiklis, the recent release of the MCU Phase Six kickstarter The Fantastic Four: First Steps has finally caused people to acknowledge both movies were “really good.”
“I’ve always sort of quietly gone like, okay, say what you want to say, but the people see it,” he said. “And now all these years later, people are sort of acknowledging like, hey, these films are family-friendly, fun movies… they got a lot right. They may be imperfect, but they’re really good movies.”
And then there’s the box office for the movies. “We made three quarters of $1 billion, those two movies,” Chiklis said. “So, you know, all those people can’t be completely out of their minds, you know what I mean?”
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
