Michael B Jordan speaks about Fantastic Four Controvsery

i just don't get why people can't understand movie versions of characters are alternate realities so the characters can be whatever the writer, director, studio and etc want them to be.

agreed!

On the other hand, Blade was so successful, they changed the comics to match the movie.

@tyger: Blade comic wasn't as successfull, this is the World's greatest comic we're talking about, could a faithful adaptation be successful? I think so.

Well, somebody's gotta be optimistic about it.

Just a question, if his race doesn't matter then why change it in the first place?

because race does matter its just that people dont want to admit it.

It does matter. They wanted to add color to the series because the FF are quite homogenous and look like an Abercrombie & Fitch catalog. Modern film makers realize how many people of different ethnicities have money to go see their movies, and are fans so want to give them heroes to identify with, as well. As a result, they tweak characters who are somewhat bland without some sort of change.

@phoenixofthetides: I only ask because people in this thread say the color of his skin does not matter. I couldn't care less about the F4, but I just don't see the point in changing a character's race if, like people are saying, his skin color does not matter.

As I said, given the track record on Fox's attempts to bring F4 to the big screen, I'm not optimistic. I just recognize that successful comic =/= successful movie. (And F4 has never really been THAT successful of a comic, despite Reed being the hero leader of Secret Wars, and Ultimate Reed the villian leader.)

Does Race matter? For Nick Fury, not so much. For Mandarin, hell yes. For the F4, a team that is all about family, it's going to have an impact on the team dynamics, unless the director just ignores the family aspects of the story.

You must be very young.

It isn't racist to want an actor to resemble the character they are being paid to portray in a movie. This extends to hair color (both actors to play the Flash in the TV show and upcoming movie series, Jason Mamoa as Aquaman, etc), eye color (To a lesser degree as it's not as noticeable) and certainly race, which is the most immediately apparent visual aspect of a character's identity.

Hugh Jackman makes a great Wolverine because with those sideburns and that hair style he looks a lot like the comic version. He looks as much like Wolverine as you can reasonably expect.

Christian Bale looks a lot like Bruce Wayne with the slick dark hair and the tall, toned body. Same with all the Batman actors, to be honest.

Christopher Reeves was the perfect cast for Superman because he looks like Clark Kent from the comics.

I could go on. The point is comics are a visual medium and, when adapted, a lot of fans enjoy being able to SEE the character they read about every day on the big screen. We as a species use vision as our primary way of differentiating one another. Looks are important.

Now, there's nothing wrong with being okay when the looks are changed for the adaptations. But that also doesn't mean everyone who gets upset by a major visual change is a racist just because that visual change came in the form of skin color.

Basically, stop throwing around the accusation of racism so willy nilly. You make yourself look ignorant and cheapen the impact such an accusation should have.

For me his race is a minor concern, I'm more worried about Reeds age and the fact that The actor for Ben Grimm looks nothing like he does in the comics.

One thing no one seems to realize is that The Thing was a good looking guy before the accident so you can't get some ugly bald guy (like they did in the first film) or some scrawny British dude like they have in this one.

This isn't a problem of race its just a general disregard for accurate portrayal of these characters, if you looked at the cast you might actually see that Michael B Jordon is probably the best suited to his role and the most talented actor there. He actually has the same issues going for him in this role that Chris Evans did, which is he is too old, Jhonny Storm is a cocky kid, if they had cast a younger black actor then I would have thought it was cool but as it stands Michael B Jordon is going to be decent at worst and at best use his acting skills to essentially create a new but popular character.

Anyway none of the problems which Michael B Jordon is faced with are his fault, he can't control his age and he can't control his race and he is going to take any acting job he can get especially a potentially big one like this. He is justified in his frustrations and he is correct that he is the subject of a moderate degree of bigotry, considering how the other actors are all at least equally wrong for their parts it feels like a travesty that he seems to have become the poster boy for the movies bad casting decisions, why? It's because he's black. Now the only thing he might be faulted for is not appreciating the sacredness of staying true to the source material, but I don't think he's saying that an adaption shouldn't hold the same meaning as the source material and that he's just saying that we don't need to have a superficial resemblance to the comic for it to be a good film, now I don't believe it will be a good film, maybe he does maybe he doesn't he certainly isn't going to say anything against his own film - no decent actor would as his agent would kill him.

I don't think the film will be any good, from what I've seen the makers of this film have totally disregarded the characters and the origin story, the truth of the matter is there has been no successful superhero film which detracted too much from the source material. I could be wrong of course, FOX has been making better X-men films and maybe I'm just assuming that they'll be just as lazy with the script as they were the last time they tried to make FF films, however from what I've seen they do not seem to care much about the source material or even getting to the center of what makes the FF great.

Hey maybe after this film bombs Marvel will offer Michael B Jordon a spot in the MCU like they did with Chris Evans.

hmm...Race is of little concern (to me) so long as they don't create a pointless backstory that takes time from the main plot of the film I'm alright with it; which we cant know until its released. I just don't want to hear about Sue and Johnnys struggle or some B.S home life drama like that, its a waste of screen time as far as I'm concerned. If they sum it up in literally 1 or 2 minutes or don't discuss his race at all, it would be fine. i.e Kingpin in Daredevil But it does seem to have the feel that they want to make a point of it. Could they really, truly not find an actor of equal talent who matches the comic characters physical features? who knows...but id think they would/should want to emulate the character as much as possible to appeal to the fan base that will be watching it and of course it will mean more to a comic book fan than someone who has never read FF. Imagine Bruce Willis/Dwayne Johnson being Thor, hair is less of a physical feature than race but that would be the cause of outrage to give him the role because of his physical features or lack their of, aren't like Chris Hemsworth (who looks like Thor). they wouldn't do it. There are no shortage of black superheroes either that they can make/have made movies of, some of the cooler one IMO are African; Spawn, Storm, t'challa(really wish they would give him a movie). But I suppose we will have to wait and see, THEN pounce on it with all the ridicule and criticism the Vine can muster.

Some of these comments make him seem full of himself for getting the role, it's like he hasn't heard that Nick Fury, Black Panther,Cyborg etc are coming up as well.

It's usually a lot of people's only experience with the characters, so it's understandable that fans would want one close to the original. Also, these choices can affect the originals such as Nick Fury jnr etc.

He want this world to be free but yet he claim that ''real humans'' should accept it or they are racist (And a majority of them are probably trolls!)... Nice mentality you got there eh.

Pilasy:La Voix d'un homme

Lol, still doesn't explain why johnny storm is black. Before anyone says I'm racist against black people, let's say they made black panther or falcon white I would have the same reaction.

I don't care but he's disgusting for saying that there's a problem for people who don't like his decision.

@bat_saint: exactly

I miss original fury

@serpinethegreen: You should of seen my friends faces when I told them that nick fury is white. I guess they want the movie universe to be based of the ultimate universe.

@bat_saint:

It's gotten weird over the last few years

It's like a trend now, turning white guys into black guys

I mean it's not like there aren't any black superheroes, and why is it always a black guy? I'm all for diversity but it's like with Will Smith now playing deadshot, if they are going to change the characters why is it always a white character to a black one? There are far less Asian or Latino heroes

But I really wish they would just make new heroes rather than changing the old ones.

@serpinethegreen: I know. If they wanted a black guy in it why not put bronze tiger in SS. I would love to see him in it.

As I said, it doesn't help that he thinks he's starting some sort of CBM revolution.

@dimitridkatsis: It's had a couple of spikes, but, has pretty steadily declined since it's inception.

@vashtanerada88: the black panther movie has been confirmed for at least half a year now. It's part of phase three.

This.

This.

So long as they don't change the mainstream continuity of the source material, I'm fine with this. CBMs are akin to Elseworld tales, as far as I'm concerned. And there's nothing wrong with that.

It's not about racism you fools. It's about unnecessarily changing a character for NO REASON. You think I wasn't upset when they made Doom an internet hacker? Or the Mandarin a joke? Stop trying to act like everyone's racist. I like the color green more than black, does that make me a racist too? >.>

Yup. It's reaching heights of ridiculousness.

Plus, there's an annoying double standard going around. I mean, if changing the race of a character is really a big deal, where's the outcry over the casting of Baron Mordo? I guess cause it's Marvel Studios, it's all good. Anybody else, they're ruining the character.

Well, I think this wealthy, upper class celebrity must have such a difficult life! He's basically the second coming of Jesus. Thank you for sacrificing to show us all how great racial equality truly is! :3

@dimitridkatsis said:

How about a Blade reboot starring Tom Hardy?

LOL.

This thread and it's comments hurt me physically.

Or... it just doesn't matter for Baron Mordo?

Again, Marvel had to release the 'All Hail the King' short to correct their handling of Mandarin, so no... it isn't that Marvel 'can do no wrong'.

Steve Rogers, for example, is going to have to be plausible as a WWII character. They had to cut the WWII 'Howling Commandos' part off of Ultimate Nick Fury in order to change him, which worked out because nobody remembered it anyway.

Cameron Crowe is also getting flak for 'whitewashing' an Asian character.

I think that if it mattered so much for The Human Torch, it should matter for Baron Mordo.

Again, repeating what I have said before.

First Family of Marvel

Susan Storm cast as white.

Johnny Storm, her brother, cast as black.

Can it be done well? Yes. Throwing adoption into the mix can make a good story.

Do I have a great deal of faith in the power of an FF movie doing it? Not after the last 3 bombs...

Having a problem with changing a character's race is a legitimate concern, like any change to a character.