Josh Trank’s Fantastic Four has received a C- CinemaScore, making it the lowest-rated superhero movie in the review organization’s history (they began gathering moviegoer reviews in 1978). It now has its fiasco.
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Unable to weather months of toxic buzz and withering reviews, the Fantastic Four reboot landed with a thud in theaters this weekend, barely clearing $26 million on almost 4000 screens and settling for a second-place finish behind last week’s #1, Mission: Impossible-Rogue Nation.
Trank reportedly had issues with producer Simon Kinberg and was forced to reshoot the ending, part of the movie many critics happened to take issue with. The director tweeted on August 7 that his version of the film was “fantastic“.
The real story this weekend belongs to the abysmal opening of Fantastic Four. Director Josh Trank, who helmed the under-appreciated “Chronicle” from 2012, has a keen eye for visuals and has an interesting take on regular people acquiring superhuman abilities, but he does not, unfortunately, have an eye for what makes a hero a hero, or what makes a villain a villain. Unsurprisingly, the film’s hugely disappointing performance has left audiences and critics alike questioning the future of the franchise, particularly the sequel already scheduled for 2017.
“While we’re disappointed, we remain committed to these characters and we have a lot to look forward to in our Marvel universe,” said Fox domestic distribution chief Chris Aronson. “We’ll do a post-mortem”.
Fox’s tracking data had previously suggested the opening weekend figures would be between $40-50m.
“I might guess the mixture of crucial response coupled with social media response conspired to suppress our opening”, Aronson stated. 5 conference call that he expected profit at the film studio to decline by $200 million this year from the $1.45 billion reported for the fiscal year ended June 30.
The latest superhero movie of the summer tanked big-time at the box office, and the director says that it’s not his fault. “This shows you how powerful the social chatter can be”. After 10 days, the Paramount film is now up to $108.6 million domestically.
Worse off was Aardman Entertainment’s “Shaun the Sheep Movie” from Lionsgate. It became the 17 film of 2015 to pass the $100 million mark at the domestic box-office.
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