According to Latino Review, Barbershop‘s Tim Story will be directing The Fantastic Four in place of Bring it On‘s Peyton Reed. Interesting…I haven’t seen any of his movies, so I can’t really comment on the pick. Also, current casting rumors have Michael Chiklis as Ben Grimm/The Thing (I like it) and Tim Robbins as Dr. Doom.(Hmmm…he’d make a better Reed Richards.)
Tag: FF
Clobbering Time?
Lots of fanboy speculation on the web today…The Fantastic Four is still looking for a director after losing Peyton (“Bring It On“) Reed, and apparently the short list includes Steven Soderbergh and Sean Astin. According to this Astin Q&A, both could bring George Clooney to the table as Reed Richards, which is great casting. I like Naomi Watts as the Invisible Woman, but she’s going to be busy with PJ’s Kong, and I could see Soderbergh going for one of his regulars, like Mary McCormack. Orlando Bloom as The Human Torch also works, although it could just as easily be Paul Walker or some other pretty-boy. And The Thing…well, I’d expect he’d be CGI, but you’ll need a Ben Grimm. Vin Diesel? Gary Sinise? I always thought the space-ship sequences in Brian DePalma’s otherwise-terrible Mission to Mars would’ve made a great intro to FF, with Tim Robbins (Reed Richards), Connie Nielsen (Sue Richards), Jerry O’Connell (Johnny Storm), and Sinise (Ben Grimm). At any rate, if FF does go to Soderbergh, let’s just hope he doesn’t pull an Ang-Lee.
Four-Color Casting Call.
Eager to catch up with Marvel in the summer blockbuster dept., Warner Brothers and DC plan to screentest a bevy of young stars for Christopher (Memento) Nolan’s new Batman film. (Of these choices, I’d go with Christian Bale.) Also is comic casting news, it turns out cut-rate chanteuse/Newlywed Jessica Simpson will be playing the lead in Mort the Dead Teenager. Normally, this’d be a non-story, but she had been rumored to play Sue Storm (Invisible Girl) in the upcoming Fantastic Four flick, which — if true — would have instantly erased any interest I might have in the project. Now, Naomi Watts, on the other hand…