‘I Knew It Was Going To Get Ugly’: Josh Trank On His ‘Fantastic Four’ Casting Decisions

For one reason or another, certain fanboys cannot stand when a beloved character — in this case, Human Torch — deviates from the script in terms of look. Michael B. Jordan, an African-American, will be playing Johnny Storm in Josh Trank’s upcoming Fantastic Four reboot, and there’s been a backlash to the recasting of the normally Caucasian character.

“I get it,” Trank said in an interview with Hero Complex. “I have a lot of friends who are older than me who are comic fans, and it’s really hard for them to be on board with a change like that. Fantastic Four has been theirs for longer than I’ve been alive. It hasn’t been mine.”

Trank argues that after telling the story several times, it would do the tale injustice to keep telling it the same way. Jordan isn’t the only one to receive negative criticism for his casting. The casting of Jamie Bell as Ben Grimm/Thing has also been met with negativity: Bell is only 5-foot-7.

“It’s more dramatic when that character becomes a huge rock creature; that’s a bigger transformation,” said Simon Kinberg, a co-writer of the film. “The notion of a working-class tough guy who’s been pushed around by his bigger brothers his whole life seemed like a more interesting character than the guy who started as a football player and just ended up being four inches taller.”

What do you think? Do the unique casting choices really change the integrity of the characters? I’m of the opinion that it’s important for the film to be good, not that the actors playing the characters have to be exact representations of the comic book. Just because comic books have notoriously been white-washed in the past doesn’t mean that people of color can’t play these superheroes and villains; that’s a silly notion and one that holds racist connotations.

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