Fantastic Four, a contemporary re-imagining of Marvel’s original and longest-running superhero team, centers on four young outsiders who teleport to an alternate and dangerous universe, which alters their physical form in shocking ways. Their lives irrevocably upended, the team must learn to harness their daunting new abilities and work together to save Earth from a former friend turned enemy.
The last big superhero movie of the year hits cinemas today with a reboot of The Fantastic Four. Here's how the new squad shape up ...
Jamie Bell as Ben Grimm/ The Thing
What you've seen him in before:Billy Elliot, Jumper, King Kong, Tintin - that last film giving him experience of motion capture which he's doing again in FF.
What's he playing in this one: A super-strong, six-foot, eight-inch, thousand pound being whose bodyis covered in rock, making him indestructible.
Geek qualifications?: "I didn't grow up with an appreciation of comic books and comic book narratives. I do now; I have an appreciation for why they've lasted for so long. Usually it's because of the way they came about, the origins of them and the reason why they exist. Usually the reason they exist is that people created them because they suffered from persecution themselves and they needed these gigantic heroes to battle the evils of the world. That's why they are still around, because they are very important to a lot of people. They leave very lasting impressions on people, for several generations. To play one is a very big responsibility."
So is playing a superhero tough?: "Well, obviously there is so much physically that is beyond my capability. Ben's supposed to be six-foot-eight ... I'm like a five-foot Englishman. And then he's also as wide as he is tall. With Tintin, that was a movie based solely in an animated environment: so you have so much more control. This was trickier. But the performance aspect always remains the same, in that you 100 per cent come to life as a different being. Trying to get under the nails of that was tricky and kind of tiring."
The Fantastic Four cast feature on the cover of this week's TimeOut:
So what's the movie like: "It's not X-Men - though I admire what they've done with that franchise. It's not Captain America and all that stuff. Those films have a certain formula and you can't get away from it, and they work. But Fantastic Four isn't playing to those rules, so I'm really excited to be part of something that isn't doing that. I do know that when people come out of the movie, because of Josh's dedication to it, they'll go, 'I haven't seen anything like that.' It's a real experience."
Miles Teller as Reed Richards/ Mister Fantasic
Miles Teller as Reed Richards in Fantastic Four.
What you've seen him in before:Divergent and Whiplash.
Previous heroic experience: Well that scene in Whiplash where he crashed the car then ran bleeding to his jazz band performance was pretty staunch.
What's he playing in this one: As Reed Richards, he's a guy who is able to stretch his limbs to incredible lengths and morph into other guises when he's not being the sensible leader of the Fantastic Four team.
Geek qualifications: "When I got cast in this role, I knew that it was my Dad's favourite comic book because he had told me. It's cool that Fantastic Four was my Dad's favourite comic when he was younger than me. Now he's a father, 60 years old, and his son is playing this comic book character that he grew up with. It's pretty bizarre."
Miles Teller as Mister Fantasic.
Is playing a superhero tough?: "There was also some hard stuff in the suits. In the beginning of the movie we're in these space suits and they were just hot as shit! And you couldn't really hear too well out of them. We're actually doing a decent amount of stunts in them, so that was tough."
So what's the movie like: "What sets us apart is that it's not just a bunch of superheroes on screen. This one is a little more humanised and probably grittier than a lot of the other superhero franchises."
Kate Mara as Sue Storm/ The Invisible Woman
Kate Mara as The Invisible Woman.
What you've seen her in before: Playing reporter Zoe Barnes in House of Cards
Previous heroic experience: She played a teenage superhero wannabe in the comedy Zoom and had a bit part in Iron Man 2.
What's she playing in this one: A woman who can render herself invisible and harness her powers to create powerful force fields.
Geek qualifications?: "I'm a total superhero movie nerd, and my favourite kind is always when I get to see the character forming their superpower because you feel so much closer to them - you understand why they got that specific power in the first place. It humanises them."
So is playing a superhero tough?: "There wasn't really any special training for it. Although, when you know you're going to have to be in a spandex suit for three months of your life, you can bet your ass I was training for that!"
So what's the movie like: We're not going to dumb it down just because [some of the the audience] is 13. We trust they're going to be able to handle superheroes who are smart. It's not all primary colours and sparkly things that fly. There's a lot more to it than that."
Michael B. Jordan as Johnny Storm in Fantastic Four.
What you've seen him in before:The Wire (as doomed teen drug dealer Wallace), Chronicle (the previous movie by Fantastic Four director Josh Trank), and the lead in Fruitvale Station.
Previous heroic experience: See Chronicle above. He also played a fighter pilot in Red Tails.
What he's playing in this one: A flying human fireball. He can also control and absorb other fires. He's also the brother of Sue Storm. She was adopted by their scientist father.
Geek qualifications?: "I was a big fan of the Fantastic Four comic books in general, I read a lot of comic books as a kid and even today I am into Japanese mangas and I watch the cartoons with English subtitles I am a nerd in that way. So this was definitely a dream come true to be able to play Johnny Storm."
Michael B Jordan as The Human Torch.
So is playing a superhero tough?: "One thing was with the costumes; the spacesuits and containment suits could be a little distracting when concentrating on the performance - and the green screen too. You really had to use your imagination for a universe that wasn't there; imagining what you are looking at and how you are reacting to what you're 'seeing'. Judging your reaction to it was a challenge."
So what's the movie like: "On the darker side of the scale, smart, grounded but not too dark."
The first issue of Marvel's Fantastic Four comic, from 1961, introduces the heroes and their superpowers.
Created in 1961 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby as Marvel's first superhero team - in answer to DC Comics' Justice League - and dysfunctional family unit, the Fantastic Four gained superpowers after exposure to radiation on a space mission. They spent much of their time defending themselves and the world from Doctor Doom, the Silver Surfer and the planet-destroying Galactus, among others.
Low budget master Roger Corman made a little-seen film adaptation in 1994. Twentieth Century Fox made two Fantastic Four movies in 2005 and 2007 starring Ioan Gruffud, Jessica Alba, Michael Chiklis and Chris Evans - who is now Captain America in the Avengers world. The movies were considered to be highly cheesy but grossed nearly US$300 million each.
Wanting to revive one of the two Marvel franchises it owns the rights to - the other is the ever expanding X-Men - Fox hired young director Josh Trank to reboot the Fantastic Four on the strength of his low-budget 2012 indie teens-get-superpowers movie Chronicle.
