Fantastic News!Empire Online
Fantastic Four director speaks:
'After months of uncertainty since Peyton Reed left The Fantastic Four, the film once again has a director. Tim Story, director of Barbershop and the upcoming American version of French hit Taxi, is to take the reins of Marvel’s superhero foursome.
"What attracted me was that they are a family," said Story. "They might want to wring each others necks. They might storm out and disappear for three days, but you also know they'll be back. They don't always get along."
For those unfamiliar with the comics, the Fantastic Four are Reed Richards (Mr Fantastic), his best friend Ben Grimm (The Thing), wife Sue Richards (The Invisible Woman) and her brother Johnny Storm (The Human Torch). They were caught up in a storm of “cosmic rays” while on a spaceflight in Reed’s experimental shuttle, and emerged with super-powers. Now Reed can turn into elastic, Grimm is a man apparently made of boulders, Sue can make herself invisible and Johnny Storm can light up like, well, a torch, and fly. The four do more adventuring and exploring than planet-saving, but have some fabulous technology and swanky offices at the Baxter Building in New York.
The other advantage that the Fantastic Four have is that they don’t have any secret identities, so there’s no moping about worrying that someone might have noticed that, in a pair of tights and without their glasses, they’d be dead ringers for those guys who just saved the world.
The director is currently scouting locations in Vancouver for the film, and casting is underway. Producers have confirmed that Michael Chiklis of TV’s The Shield is in talks to star as Ben Grimm, and there are rumours that Tim Robbins might play baddie Dr Doom. We’ll keep you posted in our Future Film section as more news comes in. '
Dr. Doom | Concept Art