Earlier this week, Kevin Feige put to rest any and all rumours regarding the inclusion of The Fantastic Four into the MCU.
“I’ve been at Marvel for 17 years,” he told Cinemablend. “There are certainly no plans whatsoever for that. But too many amazing things have happened over the past 17 years for me to ever say never. But for now, nothing.”
Considering the lengths Marvel’s publishing and merchandising division has gone to recently to eradicate its first family from existence, this comes as no surprise. Much to my chagrin, The Fantastic Four, along with The X-men, have become so ubiquitously synonymous with Fox that your average movie goer likely has no idea that historically, Reed Richards shares a much more tangible link to Spider-Man than Iron Man ever did.
And while I am by no means a fan of the Claremont-neutering that is the X-men Singer-verse, box office and critical reception dictates that venture must be a gainful one. Unfortunately for the Fantastic Four, it’s been said many times by myself and countless others that the 1994 Roger Corman film is still the most realized adaptation of the team to date and it remains nigh-unwatchable.
The “Is it possible to make a good Fantastic Four film in the 21st century?” discourse loves to rear its feckless head every couple of years, but until a studio that isn’t as pathetically pedestrian as Fox seems to be takes a swing at it, I refuse to cite the failures of past movies as evidence for the contrary.
Even when Fox is making a superhero film for reasons other than reaffirming intellectual property rights, the results tend to more often be X-men 2 than Deadpool or First Class. At best, they’re just fine, and at worst, they're the kind of genre-halting megaflop that ships ammunition straight to the superhero fatiguers. This is why even though every conceivable element is present to pique my interest for a standalone Dr. Doom film, I’m remaining cautiously pessimistic.
To most, Dr. Doom is Marvel’s quintessential villain. He’s a totalitarian warlord version of Tony Stark meets Merlin. Dr. Doom is the inspiration for Darth Vader, the eternal thorn in the side of every good-doer of the Marvel universe and his first standalone movie is being written and possibly directed by Noah Hawley, the showrunner behind FX’s Fargo and Legion.
Legion is a brilliant excursion in surrealism, a love letter to everything Singer’s vision of the X-men abandons. That isn’t to say it’s a replication or even homage to the colorful predilections of Kirby, it’s its own distinct thing. That might have something to do with the fact that the guy behind the reigns isn’t a bonafide wage drone, but a writer credited with some of the best efforts the small screen has to offer. It’s unapologetic and gritty, which is a good place to start if you aim to do justice to the leverian sorceror.
Surprisingly enough, Dr. Doom was featured in every live-action outing of the Fantastic Four and has consistently stood out as the worst aspect of almost every adaptation. I’m not saying he’s an easy character to get right, but who knew you could get a character that’s so viscerally awesome, so wrong.
Am I excited about Noah Hawley’s Doctor Doom movie? Not exactly, but this is the most promising this ignominious franchise has looked in a long time.
