It seems as if every super hero project at Fox has to go through at least one director kerfuffle during it’s pre-production. So it is hardly a surprise to hear that Daredevil just lost its director.
David Slade has officially dropped out of the project that can ill afford any delays. If Fox can’t get this movie into production soon they run the risk of losing the rights back to Marvel. A pleasant prospect to anyone who doesn’t work for Fox.
Which is exactly why this is bitter-sweet news, because the fans ultimately win if Fox totally screws the pooch on this film and loses the rights.
That isn’t the only pertinent Fox based director news to hit today either. Josh Trank, who made the stellar super hero found footage movie Chronicle, has finally signed on the dotted line to take over Fantastic Four. Trank has been rumored for the job since the 8:00pm screenings let out on Chronicle‘s opening day, but it is nice to see the deal get inked.
While it would be nice to see FF get mired in the same sort of limbo that might bring Daredevil back to the Marvel Studios fold, I think Fox is capable of letting Trank make a Fantastic movie. Fox has done a lot to mend the fences with genre fans in the last couple of years with the resurgence of their X-Men and Apes franchises.
If Fantastic Four is given the same chance it could turn into one of the big boys of the comic movie world. It would also be nice to let a franchise like FF have a little room on its own to breathe. Marvel Studios is more or less ‘all in’ for the Avengers movie-verse right now and Fantastic Four would be better suited to be an established entity before they were heavily involved with other heroes.
In any event, Fox is in a very unique position among all the major studios right now. They have two incredibly high-profile Marvel franchises (X-Men and Fantastic Four), the former of which is big enough to develop it’s own Avengers style multi-franchise arch.
Having these properties allows Fox to benefit from all the good will Marvel Studios is building. And unlike Sony and Warner Bros, they have X-Men already established and popular again. They don’t need to start from scratch to try to emulate the Marvel Studios template.
So here is hoping that Fox doesn’t mess this one up, and if they do hopefully it is so bad of a mess up that the lose the rights. I am willing to give them one more shot, but if they can’t crack FF and Daredevil this time around we might have to organize a rebellion and set them free by force.
