The Fantastic Four creator has given a simple explanation for the movie’s failure.
[dropcap size=small]I[/dropcap] hate to break it to you, but Josh Trank’s Fantastic Four reboot did not go down well. While the director and the cast and the studio blamed each other as to why the film failed, and frankly, we blamed all of them, everyone forgot to ask the opinion of the man who started it all. Without Stan Lee, there wouldn’t be a Fantastic Four to ruin in the first place. Well, this week, Mr. Lee told Larry King exactly why FANT4STIC flopped.
‘Well, it was probably because I didn’t have a cameo in it, and they didn’t discuss the story with me.’
Lee has indeed appeared in FOX’s X-Men films, and even made an appearance in 2005’s slightly more successful (who’d have thought?) Fantastic Four, so there’s no reason he should have been omitted from this film, unless the studio knew he would disapprove. Either way, Lee’s cameos have becoming something of legend, to the point that they’re spawning theories of their own, but we’re more interested in the second half of that sentence for now.
Now, Marvel and FOX have both had success without Stan Lee’s help, but given that there is yet to exist a faithful Fantastic Four adaptation, you would think eventually someone might think to consult the group’s creator. The fact that everyone involved was so caught up in churning out the most generic of origin stories without even considering outside help is actually a very strong indicator as to why the film failed. Stan Lee does it again.
Lee got his own back though. He admitted in the interview that he never went to see the film. Take that, terrible Fantastic Four movie. Stan Lee won’t even watch you.
