Fantastic Four Movie Cast Confirmed; Internet Fanboys Predictably Freak Out Unfavorably

According to Variety, the main cast of the Fantastic Four reboot have been confirmed. Miles Teller has accepted an offer to play Reed Richards. Kate Mara will be Sue Storm. Michael B. Jordan is Johnny Storm. Finally, Jamie Bell is expected to be picking up the role of Ben Grimm. The reboot will be based on the Ultimate Fantastic Four run, which means we can expect that Reed won’t necessarily be the team leader, a role that initially fell to Sue and Johnny’s father in the Ultimate series, who is a professor at a project housed in the Baxter Building for gifted students. If that is the route this story will take, that role has not been cast yet. It would also mean that Reed’s digestive system would be replaced by a bacterial stack that allows him the ability to get nourishment without eating. Just throwing that out there.

Predictably, rabid fan boys have taken to social media to decry the casting of Jordan as Johnny Storm. Johnny is a blond haired white boy in the comics and Jordan is an African American. Jordan previously worked with new FF director, Josh Trank, on the superhero pic, Chronicle.

Further stirring the pot is this little nugget, dropped by the Hollywood Reporter a couple weeks back:

Dr. Doom is said to be the villain of the reboot (the character appeared in Fox’s two previous movies and was played by Julian McMahon). The Hollywood Reporter’s Heat Vision is hearing that the studio is likely to go for a big name and isn’t ruling out switching genders for the role.

So, fan boys are freaking out. I think it’s much ado about nothing. I think the larger gain here is a script that will draw on some of the better comics writing work from Brian Michael Bendis, Mark Millar, and Warren Ellis. Not sure why fan boys aren’t focusing on that instead of whinging because some of the casting doesn’t meet their imagined platonic ideals. Oh wait, yes I do. Because that’s what fan boys do. Get it out of your systems now, kids. You know you’re just going to go see it anyway when it hits the theaters. And you’ll buy and play whatever video game comes out for consoles to accompany it. Just own it and move on with your lives.

The Fantastic Four hits theaters June 19, 2015.