Why all Fantastic Four movies fail

It's very simple: the idea of Reed Richards is just completely alien to most of the people who can greenlight something in Hollywood. A renegade science genius so smart and crazy that he'd steal a spaceship and ask his girlfriend and her kid brother to be his co-pilots, but is still a dedicated husband and father who just loves to explore and occasionally saves the world? I mean, the guy named himself "Mr. Fantastic". 

He's not motivated by greed or lust or ego, but curiosity and joy of finding new things. They can't handle it. They don't even understand it. It's the same reason why Mark Zuckerberg is allegedly driven by rejection in The Social Network. 

So they make him an awkward geek or a nerdy kid because the notion of  a good, smart, honest, loving man seems devoid of drama. These movies fail because they don't accept the basic premise of the book. It's an adventure story, like a Scifi Indiana Jones. Marvel studios would get it right. But until Fox or whomever else holds the rights accepts the central conceit, these movies will always bomb. 

Wrapped in the Flag

Comic Book Resources is running a poll on who should play Captain America in the new movie slated for 2010. So far, here are the results:

And I have to say, I don't like the idea of any of these guys as Captain America, even though many of them are actors I really enjoy and respect.

Pardon me while I think out loud for a bit.

Here's the deal: Captain America is a scrawny blonde-haired, blue-eyed kid who grew up on the lower east side of Manhattan during the Great Depression who gets injected with some super steroids by Uncle Sam to become a patriotic juggernaut against the forces of tyranny during the 2nd World War before being frozen in suspended animation and thawed out in modern times. He's like a character out of a Mickey Rooney movie who gets transformed into the one superhero that every other superhero instantly defers to as soon as they're in his presence.


May favorite line about Captain America comes from the 1st issue of Mark Millar's genius re-imagining of The Avengers in "The Ultimates", where a paratrooper about to be dropped into a Nazi hot zone calls Cap crazy to his sidekick, Bucky Barnes, for not wearing a parachute.

Bucky just laughs and says "Cap things chutes are for sissies."

Or, better yet, towards the end of that same series, where a villain demands that he surrender, a bloodied Cap points to the "A" printed on his mask and shouts:

"You think this letter on my head stands for FRANCE?!?!?!"

So, which of those actors can you imagine believably pulling off that role in the same way that you just nodded in total agreement about the casting of Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man? Honestly, the closest to it would be Matthew McConaughey - he's whitebread enough and, judging by his performance in "Reign of Fire" he can do intensity, but he's bit too southern to play a New Yorker, and he doesn't really have the steel in his eyes that I would want for that character.

Aaron Eckhart is pretty close, but just perhaps a bit older than I would want, simply because I have a hard time seeing him doing much of the fighting & stuntwork that goes into Captain America. Although, to be perfectly honest, Tim Roth did a great job as kind of a proto-super soldier in "The Incredible Hulk" this summer, but that was only in one scene against a CGI Hulk. Personally, I want the scene where Cap wades into a gang of 30 Hydra agents and hands them their collective asses like a red-white-and-blue fighting whirling dervish, and I want it as authentic as the fighting Messrs. Bale & Nolan put together in "The Dark Knight".

I love Wil Smith, but, I'm sorry, Captain America is not Black. Period.

Hmmm. Eric Bana? No, that would be like casting a Yankee to play James Bond.

Frankly, I don't think you need a big name. In fact, I think it's better that you go with an unknown and let him create the role.

How about Timothy Olyphant? Anybody who's seen "Deadwood" knows he's an intense bugger, can get physical, and is a heck of an actor. But, to be perfectly honest, I really want him for "Green Lantern" - he was born to play cocky test pilot Hal Jordan.

OK, now I'm really rambling. :-) I'll have a LOT more to say about Green Lantern at a later date.

The short answer is "Go with an unknown, Marvel". Captain America is not Iron Man. Everybody knows who that character is, so you don't need a star to sell the movie.