There seems to be some pretty bad blood among "Fantastic Four" producers and director Josh Trank, and it is quite evident in a cryptic tweet the 31-year-old director posted, then later deleted.
"A year ago I had a fantastic version of this. And it would've received great reviews. You'll probably never see it. That's reality though," he said.
The movie is already garnering a lot of negative reviews, and fans and critics alike are having a tough time finding nice things to say about the rebooted film.
Trank's tweet was the first true revelation that he was having some creative clashes with producer and screenwriter Simon Kinberg, even though the two did their best to conceal it for the past several months leading up to the film.
"None of those facts were true - and any of the facts that were true were spun in such a maliciously wrong way," Trank said in a June interview with the Los Angeles Times. Kinberg was right beside him while he was answering the questions, and he added: "If you ask anybody by name who I've worked with, from Simon to producer Hutch Parker or my crew or anybody else, they'd be like, 'We've been working really hard on this movie and we've had an excellent time working together.' It's been a challenging movie - for all of the right reasons."
They also denied rumors that Trank was removed from the "Fantastic Four" reshoots, especially from the climax, which they deemed was a disaster right from the very start. Trank also denied talks that claimed he was dropped by Lucasfilm from writing a "Star Wars" standalone film written by Kinberg, which would focus on Boba Fett.
"I want to do something original after this because I've been living under public scrutiny, as you've seen, for the last four years of my life," Trank explained. "And it's not healthy for me right now in my life. I want to do something that's below the radar."
But tongues cannot help but wag that Trank was antagonistic towards the entire crew, producers, studio, and even the stars - Miles Teller, Kate Mara, Michael B. Jordan, and Jamie Bell. On the other hand, there were also others who defended Trank, saying that he was forced to conform to the studio's wishes, and that he only had trouble dealing with Fox production president Emma Watts.
Sources added that the studio intentionally delayed casting and script approvals, slashed the budget, and even tried to force last-minute script changes to the film, much to the dismay of Trank.
