"Fantastic Four" Reboot Finds Its Heroes

Next summer, director Josh Trank (who directed the found-footage super-hero hit, "Chronicle") will bring the rebooted Fantastic Four back to the screen. Why? Because if 20th Century Fox didn't make another Fantastic Four movie soon, then Marvel would have gotten the rights to the characters back in their possession. So yeah, this is kinda more like bad news because frankly, the first two "Fantastic Four" movies were not all that great, and Marvel could do much better job with them if they had full control (perhaps the most depressing thing of all is that Dr. Doom can never be the villain in an Avengers movie).

Anyways, the four actors who will be taking over the roles of the first super-hero family have been announced and frankly, all the choices are a little surprising. First off we have Miles Teller (whom I said was on the short-list to play Mr. Fantastic last August) as the leader of the group. Why is this surprising? Because in all the roles I have seen him in he has always played the dumb/ignorant best friend of the main character who makes jokes and is comic relief (except for in "The Spectacular Now"). He certainly does not seem to fit the bill to play the smartest man in the world/hero/really nice guy such as Mr. Fantastic.

Next is Kate Mara, who is still relatively unknown unless you watch "House of Cards" in which she plays Zoe Barnes (ok so maybe she is well known). After watching the entire first season of House of Cards this weekend, I'm not as surprised about this casting choice because Mara is a great actress with lots of power that I think could translate well to Susan Storm/The Invisible Women.

Jamie Bell (Jumper) has been cast as Ben Grimm/The Thing. Now...this is what I don't get...The Thing (not the scary monster) is essentially a giant rock-man, that is the same size as The Hulk. Jamie Bell is a short, scrawny guy. So why the heck is he playing this character? I haven't the slightest idea. This is probably the casting decision I have the hardest time with accepting.

Finally, Michael B. Jordan, who received many award nominations for his breakout role in last year's "Fruitvale Station," has been cast as Johnny Storm/The Human Torch/the fan-favorite character of the series that was brilliantly played by now Captain America Chris Evans. What surprised me about this choice was (no not that The Human Torch is white in the comics, after all several characters in Marvel Comics were of a different race across different interpretations) that Susan and Johnny are siblings in the comics, so I wonder what will be changed (will there be married in this version? was one of them adopted? Or are the not related at all but still have the same last name by coincidence?) But Jordan has proven himself a good actor so maybe...ok he's not going to do a better job than Chris Evans did, but good luck to him.

Overall, these casting decisions make me very pessimistic about how this film is going to turn out, but hey, this isn't the first time the quality of an actor for the role of a super hero/villain has been questioned (Heath Ledger, Christian Bale, Jack Nicholson, ok why are these all examples from Batman). Maybe (and hopefully) the rebooted "Fantastic Four" will be a huge hit.

But seriously, if they don't cast an amazing A-lister as Dr. Doom I will be pissed.