The Advice 'Fantastic Four' Director Tim Story Has for Next Filmmaker to Tackle Property

The Fantastic Four has been a notoriously difficult property to adapt from comic book pages to the screen, with four different films attempting to portray the characters to, at best, mixed success. With Disney’s recent acquisition of 20th Century Fox, however, Marvel Studios now controls the rights to the characters--and this week, previous Fantastic Four director Tim Story offered advice to whichever filmmaker will tackle the franchise next.

“First, I'd tell them to listen to [Marvel Studios head] Kevin Feige," he said to CinemaBlend (via CBR), adding, “I would say, do all your research on Reed Richards...Stretching is not easy. But I wouldn't have much to say, they've got an incredible, incredible system happening over there and I don't think they need to be told anything. I can't wait to see it."

Story was the director of the 2005 Fantastic Four and its 2007 sequel, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. Both films achieved commercial success but mixed critical reception, and have largely faded from memory following the explosion of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The films did perform better, however, than the 2015 reboot helmed by Josh Trank, which was a critical and commercial flop.

Though the Fantastic Four have been under Disney’s control since the beginning of this year, there have been no plans announced to incorporate either them or the X-Men, also owned by Fox, into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. However, Marvel Studios has been tight-lipped about plans for upcoming projects in general, leading to suspicion that an adaptation is in the works.

As for us, we hope that Story’s advice will be helpful to the next creator to take on the Fantastic Four--even though the property hasn’t exactly been the easiest to adapt, we think that someday, someone will be able to do it justice.