Fantastic Four screenwriter and producer Simon Kinberg calls reboot a ‘coming of age story.’
Very little has been revealed about 20th Century Fox’s upcoming reboot of Fantastic Four, save for its director (Chronicle helmer Josh Trank) and its cast. But producer and screenwriter Simon Kinberg was on hand at WonderCon this weekend to promote X-Men: Days of Future Past– on which he has handled the same duties -- and sat down with Den Of Geek to talk about both franchises.
With the Fantastic Four cast – Miles Teller as Reed Richards, Kate Mara as Sue Storm, Michael B. Jordan as Johnny Storm and Jamie Bell as Ben Grimm – skewing somewhat younger than the characters have been mostly portrayed in the comics, we asked Kinberg if the story was going further back in time:
"We’re definitely telling a younger story that the original films did. It depends on what books you look at. There are some, like the Ultimate books, that tell this story. So it is an origin story of the Fantastic Four, and it does follow them before they really know what a superhero is."
He added:
"They’re older than high school, but they’re not quite grown into the world. If anything, this is a coming of age story."
Pressed on whether we’ll see the iconic sequence in which the Four gain their powers after being bombarded with cosmic rays during a space flight, Kinberg was more reticent about the details:
"There is archetypal imagery of how they get their powers, for sure, and it does involve some sort of scientific travel."
The movie begins shooting in Louisiana in about two weeks. Kinberg had more to say about Fantastic Four and a lot to say about X-Men: Days of Future Past as well, so look for that interview to arrive soon. In the meantime, what do you think about his comments on the direction Fantastic Four is taking?
Fantastic Four is due out June 19, 2015.
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