Fox Takes A Director, Leaves A Director: Fantastic Four and Daredevil News

In light of the phenomenal success of The Avengers, it's hardly a surprise that studios like Fox and Sony are hard at work to get their various Marvel properties up to snuff.  For those who are unaware, Marvel licensed out a handful of characters like Spider-Man and the X-Men to other studios years ago, before they gathered the capital to start their own independent production house.  The catch is that these studios must continue to develop their franchises or else the rights revert back to Marvel.  (That's primarily why we just got a reboot of Spider-Man that was half-cooked at best.)

Thusly, the floors of Comic Con will surely be abuzz today with the news that Fox has officially hired Chronicle director Josh Trank to take the reins on their Fantastic Four reboot.  Trank's name was bandied about almost immediately after his first feature turned out to be a surprise box office hit and I think he's actually a great choice.  Trank not only has a smart visual style, but he has a great understanding of how to build a film around strong characters, not just flashy effects and big set pieces.  Fantastic Four is considered by most to be comic book royalty and neither of the previous films ever really did the characters justice.  Most attribute that to serious missteps in casting, (other than Chris Evans, who has moved on to greater success as Captain America) so I'll be very curious to see who Trank can lure to the table this time around.

Meanwhile, Fox has lost a director for their Daredevil reboot in the form of Twilgiht: Eclipse helmer David Slade.  I wouldn't go so far as to say Daredevil fans have dodged a bullet, but I'm sure nobody is all that broken up about Slade's departure.  He's a perfectly adequate director, but he's not exactly a name that generates a whole lot of excitement.  No word yet on who might replace Slade, but I expect Fox to name a successor fairly soon.  They've got a script in place based on Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli's Born Again run (which means we'll be seeing the Kingpin once again) and a fall start date that's looming ever closer.  The interesting element is that they're actually running up against the aforementioned rights deadline with Marvel, so Fox literally can't afford to delay production any further.

While studios are obviously intent on maintaining control of their various Marvel properties, they also have to be looking at The Avengers $1.5 billion worldwide haul and trying to figure out a way to get a piece of that action without giving up sovereignty over their franchises.  At some point soon, I think we're going to see either Andrew Garfield's Spider-Man or perhaps Hugh Jackman's Wolverine make an Avengers cameo.  Otherwise they're basically leaving money on the table.

EDIT: That Deadline article also mentions that Attack The Block director Joe Cornish is attached to direct Rust as his next project.  It's based on a graphic novel about a farm boy who stumbles upon a kid with a jetpack fighting a giant robot in his fields.  If that doesn't sound AMAZING to you, go put Attack The Block at your Netflix queue IMMEDIATELY and then talk to me...

TRAILER OF THE DAY! Max Landis & His Super Teens In CHRONICLE

It's hard to argue that the "found footage" genre isn't played out at this point, especially with a third entry in the Paranormal Activity franchise (and a prequel no less!) about to assault eyeballs nationwide.  That's not to say it can't be done well.  September Tapes was the first film I saw that really seemed to use the convention in an interesting way, and Cloverfield was one of the most entertaining audience experiences I've ever been a part of, but for the most part the concept has been stuck in the horror genre and has become repetitive at best and laughable at its worst.  (i.e. Apollo 18.)  But Max Landis looks to be doing something a little different here, using the found footage gimmick in the superhero genre.

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First of all, I think the younger, largely unfamiliar cast works in his favor here, as the idea of kids who develop special powers and then use them to fuck around at school or in a toy store actually lends itself to the convention.  Every teenager today is walking around with a video camera in the pocket, so it feels 100% plausible that they'd start recording everything that happens to them.  Granted, the scale of the story certainly seems to grow exponentially, so we'll see if the convention remains effective throughout the film.

And yes, Max Landis is the son of John Landis, i.e. the man who gave us Animal House and The Blues Brothers, but before you get up on your nepotism high horse, you have to admit that Chronicle, while having a lame title, looks darkly entertaining.  Besides, I actually love that I once again live in a world where there are filmmakers named Reitman and Landis who are cranking out interesting and creative movies.  Maybe Bill Murray and Harold Ramis have some kids who can act...someone get on this.