Miles Teller Says Fantastic Four Reboot Is Different In Every Way From Previous Movies

While promoting his new film Whiplash, Miles Telller, who will play Mr. Fantastic in the upcoming Fantastic Four reboot, was asked a question by Vulture about how the new Fantastic Four film will be different from its predecessors.

"It's different in every way," Teller says. "All those actors were a lot older, their characters were in different places. The tone of this film is completely different: We don't have Michael Chiklis in a big Styrofoam thing, and I think that [a more grounded approach] is what people are into — X-Men: First Class is doing that. You're dealing with these characters but you're making them real people in how they exist day-to-day. People wanted it to be taken more seriously than the kind of Dick Tracy, kitschy, overly comic-book world."

This may be a misreading of what was wrong with the previous Fantastic Four and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. It wasn't the "comic-book world" feel that doomed those films, or that they weren't serious enough. Those films were flawed on every conceivable level of execution.

It's also a little funny that he should cite X-Men: First Class as an example of a more realistic approach, considering that First Class was significantly more "comic-book" than any of the X-Men films, with its bright blue and yellow costumes and not being afraid to soak in the 1960s setting. Makes you wonder how Teller is defining "comic-book."

Teller also addressed the issue of market saturation, as concerns the increasingly crowded superhero and blockbuster film calendar.

"At the end of the day, it depends on the product," he said. "Guardians of the Galaxy was a really fresh take on it, I think people responded to that. In terms of where we are in the schedule, we're playing the same weekend they were playing. But it's a big summer: You've got Avengers, and my buddy [Whiplash co-star J.K. Simmons] is in Terminator, and you got Jurassic World. There's a ton of movies out there, so if people have an appetite for it, they'll see a couple, and if not, maybe they'll just see one."

The Fantastic Four opens August 7, 2015.