Rather unusually for a Marvel movie that was a hit at the box office, there’s been no concrete news on a third Fantastic Four movie (or a spin-off for the Silver Surfer) since Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer made $288 million at the global box office last year.
So director Tim Story – who’s odds-on favourite to finish the trilogy, if it ever happens – is taking advantage of the gap in his schedule by signing on to direct the inspirational true-life tale, Patriots, for The Weinstein Company.
Forest Whitaker will be taking his shiny Oscar onto the movie’s set if negotiations to cast him in the lead role pan out. Whitaker will play Al Collins, coach of the basketball team at John Ehret High in Louisiana who, just one year after Hurricane Katrina decimated the area, won the State Championship with a newly-rebuilt team, comprising ten kids who’d attended five different schools before the disaster struck.
Stirring stuff, clearly. And with a script from The Great Debaters’ Robert Eisele, there’s no doubt that this one could be an outsider for Oscar gold come next year, as The Weinstein Company is fast-tracking this for a Thanksgiving release, thanks to an interim agreement with the WGA that allows them to circumvent the Writers’ Strike. (It’s the first film to do this, incidentally.)
The only obstacle we can see is Story himself. He’s a nice guy and his last two movies may have been big hits, but with Barbershop, Taxi, and two Fantastic Fours on his CV, he’s hardly troubled distinguished himself as a director. Perhaps, though, Patriots will tease out hidden nuances and depths.
Shooting will start in April, and is scheduled for completion before the SAG deal runs out in June, when the actors may go on strike too. And that will really bugger up any potential announcement of FF3, won’t it?