When Michael B. Jordan was cast as Johnny Storm in Josh Trank’s 2015 reboot of “Fantastic Four,” the online trolls had a field day – blasting the choice of a black actor for a role that’s portrayed as white in the comics.
It also lead to an interesting onscreen ‘family’ with the late Reg E. Cathey cast as his father Franklin Storm and the very white Kate Mara cast as his sister Sue Storm who is adopted in this version.
Nevertheless, the vocal backlash against the project was so bad that Stan Lee had to issue a statement reminding fans the Marvel Universe is supposed to be a diverse place, and that characters should not be defined by their race.
Now, as part of a new interview with First Cut, director Josh Trank has revealed that he wanted to cast a black woman as Sue Storm but the studio’s desire for a promising young star meant that he received some major pushback:
“There was a lot of controversial conversations that were had behind the scenes on that. I was mostly interested in a black Sue Storm and a black Johnny Storm and a black Franklin Storm. But…when you’re dealing with the studio on a massive movie like that, everyone wants to keep an open mind to who the big stars are going to be, like well maybe it’ll be Margot Robbie or something like that.
But when it came down to it, I found a lot of pretty heavy pushback on casting a black woman in that role. When I look back on that, I should have just walked when that sort of realisation hit me, and I feel embarrased about that… that I didn’t just out of principal. Those aren’t the values I stand for in my own life, and those weren’t the values then or ever for me. Cause I’m someone who always talks about liek standing up for what I believe, even if it means burning my career out.
I feel bad that I didn’t take it to the mat with that issue. I feel like I failed in that regard, but that was a weird, unfortunate situation – I don’t know how else to put it… if there’s one regret that I have, it’s that issue.”
Trank’s Fantastic Four comments come at the 55 minute mark in the video interview. Ultimately the casting didn’t matter much as the film was famously compromised on multiple levels and proved to be a dud with both critics and at the box-office.
