Seth Grahame-Smith, writer of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, has been brought aboard to do a polish on the Fantastic Four script at Fox. The film is set to be directed by Chronicle‘s Josh Trank, who is also attached to a Venom film at Sony.Matthew Vaughn just came aboard as a producer for the film, which will reportedly delve deep into Marvel mythology, with The Hollywood Reporter name-dropping “alien races the Kree and the Skrull, and the anti-matter universe known as the Negative Zone.” The Skrulls were established as being part of the Fantastic Four rights package after it was revealed that they had been considered as villains for Marvel’s The Avengers last year. Ultimately, the film’s villains were The Chitauri, essentially the Ultimate Universe version of the characters.While Smith’s novels have been massive successes and are popular with the comic book fan base, he hasn’t exactly been a superstar at the box office. Last year, Fox made a feature film based on Grahame-Smith’s novel Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, which made only about half of its budget back at the domestic box office. Grahame-Smith wrote that screenplay, as well as an adaptation of ’70s supernatural sitcom Dark Shadows. Dark Shadows was a similar box office disappointment, with the Tim Burton-directed flick making only $80 million back on a $150 million budget.
