It's doubtful that someone could top the previous three films, but they can sure as hell try. I mean, how could they possibly make a film better than the train wrecks that came before it? Actually make a fun film? Capitalize on the family dynamic that literally no other team in the MCU has? Model the characters after (gasp) their comic-book counterparts? Blasphemy!
In all seriousness, the previous movies sucked. The thing that gets me, is that it isn't even that hard to write a great FF story, because you can almost do anything. You could send them to hell, and just say, "They found a portal, because Reed Richards is a science guy!" and everyone would go, "Oh. Ok, let's see if The Thing can punch out the devil."
The point is, the FF are always on some wacky, intergalactic space mission to another dimension, so the world is your oyster, from a writer's perspective. And maybe, juuuuuuuust maybe, we've got someone who understands that the FF should be light, fun and about family. Peyton Reed definitely has a vision for the franchise, and it sounds better than anything else I've heard.
Ant-Man & The Wasp director Peyton Reed had a recent interview with Cinemablend, and said that he'd be game to take on Marvel's most super-powered family. In fact, he's already had a chance... sort of.
Reed said, "Well, I have been known to mention Fantastic Four in conversations that may or may not have happened in the Marvel hallways. It’s all a giant question mark at this point, because no one knows if this merger is going to happen. It was on, it was off, it was on... who knows. I guess I can dream, right? I can have the dream. We’ll see. Time will tell!"
He went on to say that, in 2003, he got the chance to make a FF film, but ending up leaving the project due to creative differences. He talked about how he would have had the film set in the 1960s, and how the FF are one of the teams that can operate openly, with no masks, in broad daylight, and are loved by the public.
“At the beginning of a working day in Manhattan, you’re in line at Starbucks and someone runs in, ‘Hey, the Fantastic Four is fighting right around the corner!’ People run out of Starbucks and the camera flies around the corner to this splash page imagery, where the Human Torch is flying, The Thing is fighting, and it’s just chaos. Really, Joss’ first Avengers movie had that feel – it’s broad daylight. There was a time when you just didn’t have the technology, so a lot of those fights took place at night. We thought having it take place in the city during the day would’ve been a lot of fun. They were kind of modern celebrities. There were a lot of different versions of it, but that was a movie I really wanted to make.”
Time will tell if these movie execs can get their heads out of their asses and try to redeem what was once a very, very lucrative property. At least with the success of ensemble films like Guardians of the Galaxy and Avengers, there is some ground-work that's already been laid.
