In Cinemautopsy,welook back at a recent, high-profile failure and ask a simple question: What the hell happened? In this installment... the comic that launched Marvel Comics. A cast of beloved up-and-comers. One of the hottest young directors in Hollywood. A bold attempt to reinvent the superhero genre.What could possibly go wrong?Many things. Many things could go wrong. And did.Movie:Fantastic FourDirector:Josh TrankWriters:Jeremy Slater, Simon Kinberg, and Josh TrankRelease date:August 7, 2015Worldwide box office:$167.9 millionReported budget: $120 millionRotten Tomatoes rating:9Metacritic score: 27CinemaScore:C-Franchise context:FourthFantastic Fourfilm; first in rebooted series.What Went Right:FoxFoxloading...On paper, this is such an appealingFantastic Four. The director, Josh Trank, was responsible for Chronicle,one of the most unusual superhero movies of the 21st century. That film, about a group of high school kids who get super powers from a mysterious hole in the ground, was particularly well-attuned toteenagers emotions and hardships, two things that should have served this reboot about a younger version of the FF well. Its four main leads were all rising stars: Miles Teller fromWhiplash, Kate Mara fromHouse of Cards, Michael B. Jordan from theFriday Night LightsTV series (and TranksChronicle), and Jamie Bell fromBilly Elliot,The Adventures of Tintin, and, more recently, Snowpiercer and Nymphomaniac.LikeChronicle, TranksFantastic Four is less interested inthe superficial trappings of superheroeslike spandexand special effects, and more curious aboutthe mental and emotional toll of superheroeslife-altering transformations.His interpretation brokefromFFtradition in numerous ways. His team never wore bright bluecostumes, and they gained their powers in a doomed journey to another dimension, rather than an outer-space encounter with cosmic rays. He also cast Jordan, an African American, as the Human Torch, an inspired and ideal choice for the hotheaded Johnny Storm despite complaints from some close-minded comic-book fans.The whole cast, in fact, was terrific.These are all talented people. This is a group you want to see make a movie together. Just not necessarilythis movie.READ MORE:Every Marvel Movie, Ranked From Worst to BestWhat Went Wrong:MarvelMarvelloading...In the film, Tellers Reed Richards, Jordans Johnny Storm, Maras Sue Storm, and Toby Kebbells Victor Von Doom create a device that can transport people to another dimension they call Planet Zero. Afraid that the government will hijack their project and steal all the glory, Reed, Johnny and Victor, along with Reeds friend Ben (Bell) sneak into the machine after hours and transport themselves to the other world. The trip is a disaster, Victor seemingly dies, and the other three (along with Sue, whos monitoring their journey from back on Earth) are irreversiblytransformed.In broad strokes, its not that different from the originalFantastic Fourorigin from the 1961 Stan Lee and Jack Kirby comic book. Its also a surprisingly cogent metaphor for what happened to Tranks movie during production: A group of young filmmakers withhigh-minded ideals developed acreativespin on well-known characters, only to find their creativity threatenedfrom craven interests concerned with the bottom line. The people in charge wanttheir creation, and when our heroes try to seizecontrol, the result is a catastrophefor everyone involved.Unfortunately, clever self-referentiality does little to mitigate the boredom of the finished product, or to mask the fact that the movie was clearly mutated away from its original intent at some point during production. TranksFantastic Four is very clearly split right down the middle. The first half is focused on scientific exploration and discovery, and follows young Reed as he invents his first teleporter and gets recruited into the Baxter Foundation, aschool for prodigies. Reed, Sue, Victor, and Johnny then collaborate on the Quantum Gate which leads to their accident on Planet Zero. When they return home, the government experiments on the survivors, and Ben agrees to help the U.S. Military in exchange for a cure to his rocky condition.Cut to a One Year Later title card, and suddenly were in anothermovie, with characters behaving totally differently than they did seconds earlier(introverted Reed, who previously wore glasses, no longer needs them and acts more arrogantly than Johnny). Several actors look different too(Kate Mara wears an obvious and unfortunate wig duringmany scenes; Michael B. Jordan is clean shaven in one scene and sports a goatee and mustache in the next).FoxFoxloading...None of Fantastic Fourssecond halfmakes any sense. The Thing is supposedly used on covert operations, but theres nothing covert about a giant rock man who doesnt wear pants. He blamesReed for his transformation, but no one forced him to go on the extremely dangerous and entirely unsupervised trip to the unknown alternate dimension. Reed supposedly wants to cureBen, but he runs away to Latin America where he cant help him, and then when he gets back to the base he forgets abouthisresearch to focus onanother trip to Planet Zero.On a second, post-hype viewing, the first half of TranksFantastic Fourshows promise. The scenes between Teller and Mara are good, and in very limited screentime Jordan captures Johnny Storms combinationof cockiness and decency. Parts of thevery long first act that are deeply confusing (including the basic nature of the Baxter Foundation; Reed describes it as a school but he never goes to a single class and most of the kids look to be in their mid-20s)but there are also flashes of a moving story aboutidealistic youngsters who must band together to avoid exploitation from an older and more cynical generation.Fantastic Fours second half, sadly,is all cynicism and exploitation. Doom, who never seems all that evil in the early scenes, vanishes from the movieat the midpoint, then returns with only about 20 minutes left because the movie never gets around to introducing any otherbad guys for theFantastic Fourto fight.Doom somehow survived alone on Planet Zero for a year, and he displays godlike powers back on Earth, where he blocks bullets with telekinesis and pops dudes heads like ripe grapes. But then in the big final fight, Reed and Ben defeat him by punching him. (Stretchy and/or rocky punches! My one weakness!)The movie is a total mess. It goes from semi-thoughtful consideration of the moral ramification of superpowers to illogical globe-hopping adventure in the span of a single title card. Structurally, it seems to be missing most of its second and third acts; its about an hour and 15minutes of setup and then less than a half-hour of payoff. Numerous shots and scenes from the films marketing, including some of the most impressive special effects (like the Thing droppingfrom a helicopter onto a military target), dont appear in the movie at all.Is this a bold reinvention of superhero mythology? Or is it just a minor variation on a filmweve seen before? As the movie morphs from scene to scene, youcan feel the various interests all trying to shape it into different things. And as in the film itself, experimentation only leads to tragedy.Postmortem:FoxFoxloading...In hindsight, Tranks Fantastic Four looks likeone of the first examples of an increasingly common type of blockbuster, where studios green light a challenging take on material,get cold feet during production, thentry to backtrack to something formulaic and familiar after its too late to start from scratch.With so much money on the line, it makes sense that executives would want to protect their investment (and, by extension, their own jobs). But Im baffled why they dont just play it safe in the first place. How do you start with a weird, seriousFantastic Four and wind up with the Thing punching Doctor Doom into a giant sky laser? I reached out to Jeremy Slater, one of the three credited screenwriters of the film, who offered a few insights into early versions of the script, and the thinking behind these massive tentpoles.Slater estimated that he wrote 10-15 drafts ... over a six month period for Trank before he was replaced. Although hes credited as one of the writers of the final film (Trank and producer Simon Kinberg are the others), he says just one line of his dialogue made it into the movie. (Dont blow up, when young Reed tries his home-brew teleporter for the first time.)He also stressed thats fairly normal for this kind of blockbuster, which tend to go through a half-dozen writers on their way to the screen.Although TranksFantastic Fourwould ultimately get darker and more serious,the storySlater describes sounds a lot brighter, with more material drawn from the comics.His screenplay opened, like the film, with Reed and Ben as children, followed by Reeds recruitment by the Baxter Foundation, which in its original conception was envisioned as a sort of Hogwarts for nerds: a school filled with young geniuses zipping around on prototype hoverboards and experimenting with anti-gravity and teleportation and artificial lifeforms. There Reed was supposed to strike up a friendship with a damaged young Latverian scientist named Victor, who slowly seduced Reed into bending the rules, damaging his friendship with Ben.There was still a portal device at the center of the Fantastic Fours transformation, but originally it sent the kids to the Negative Zone (a classic Lee/Kirby comic-book creation) where they would have fought Annihilus (described by Slater as a pissed-off cybernetic T-Rex). Annihilus appears to kill Victor, and the rest get zapped with radiation on their return home. giving them their powers. Later, Victor returns from the Negative Zone, having killed Annihilus and reshaped his Control Rod into a sort of living body armor.Minus Annihilus and calling Planet Zero the Negative Zone, the outline is basically the same as the finished movie. According to Slater, the difference is tone and structure. He preferred stuff with lots of humor, lots of heart, lots of spectacle, while Trank preferred something grounded, gritty, and as realistic as possible. And while all of the aforementioned events took placeby page 45 of the early 130-page draft, in the final movie, they take up almost the entire runtime. Slater says their early screenplay had a lot more stuff after that point that nevermade it to the screen:In addition to Annihilus and the Negative Zone, we had Doctor Doom declaring war against the civilized world, the Mole Man unleashing a 60 foot genetically-engineered monster in downtown Manhattan, a commando raid on the Baxter Foundation, a Saving Private Ryan-style finale pitting our heroes against an army of Doombots in war-torn Latveria, and a post-credit teaser featuring Galactus and the Silver Surfer destroying an entire planet. We had monsters and aliens and Fantasticars and a cute spherical H.E.R.B.I.E. robot that was basically BB-8 two years before BB-8 ever existed. And if you think all of that sounds great...well, yeah, we did, too. The problem was, it would have also been massively, MASSIVELY expensive.Though Slater admits he didnt have any contact with Trank or the studio after he finished his six months of work on the screenplay, he assumes the exorbitant price tag squashed this ambitious take on the material. He doesnt blame Fox for that either. Would you spend $300 million on a Fantastic Four film? he asked. Particularly after the previous two films left a fairly bad taste in audiences mouths? ... Its understandable that everyone involved would take steps to minimize their risk as much as possible. Unfortunately, those steps probably compromised the film to a fatal degree.During production, there were otherrumors about issues that compromised the film. Just as the movie was opening in theaters, Trank tweeted (and then deleted) that a year earlier hed made a fantastic version of the film that the world will probably never see. Toby Kebbell later confirmedthat Trank made a great film youll never see that was much darker than the theatrical cut. The Hollywood Reporterpublished a different perspective; according to their sources Trank was extremely withdrawn on set, and his movie was ill-conceived.THRquoted a crewmember who believedFantastic Fourwas made for the wrong reasons, namelyto ensure the rights to the charactersdidnt revert to Marvel.That would certainly explainsome ofFantastic Fours problems.Ultimately, though, the reasons are irrelevant. All that matters is the movie, and Tranks Fantastic Four was a majordisappointment.For his part,Slater says hes not bitter about the experience and hes grateful he got to work for as long as he didwith characters hes loved since childhood. (He describes himself as an ubernerd who was brought in to balance out Tranks more grounded take.)For decades, Marvel Comics has published a series calledWhat If? thatspins new variations on classic comic book tales. In devising such an outrageous concept forFantastic Fourand then settling on a bland alternative,Trank and Slatercreated a cinematic what-if to rival that comics best issues.Get our free mobile app12 Movie Performances So Bad They Became IconicThey might be bad, but they're also impossible to forget.Gallery Credit: Emma Stefansky