Fantastic Four Casting Could Give Us Bi-Racial Superhero Siblings
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Kate Mara, Miles Teller, and Jamie Bell are Fox's picks to join Michael B. Jordan in its Fantastic Four reboot.
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According to The Hollywood Reporter, Kate Mara, Miles Teller, and Jamie Bell are Fox's picks to join Michael B. Jordan in its Fantastic Four reboot. Miles Teller will of course be The Thing and Jamie Bell will be the Invisble Wo—just kidding. Jordan will be the Human Torch and Bell is the pick to be the Thing; Mara will succeed Jessica Alba as the Invisible Woman, and anti-heartthrob heartthrob Miles Teller will be Reed Richards.
The casting signals that Fox is going to make the FF younger (Richards is often portrayed as prematurely graying), nothing like the previous cast which featured Michael Chiklis, Ioan Gruffudd, and Chris Evans, in addition to Alba. These new picks kinda give you an idea of what Fox wants from their reboot: something that reaches a younger demographic and something that will make you forget about their first two blunders.
There's also the issue of diversity.
In the comics, the Human Torch (played by Jordan) is supposed to be the Invisible Woman's biological brother. When Jordan's involvement in the project was first announced, a few comic purists and some racists were mad at Marvel and Fox turning their blonde-haired, blue-eyed Human Torch into a young black man— not unlike the outrage when Marvel/Disney chose Idris Elba to play Heimdall, a white character, in the Thor franchise.
Mara and Jordan's casting could possibly signal Human Torch's and the Invisible Woman's origin might change because of the racial differences between the two, (nothing has been stated yet). But wouldn't it be awesome and a big middle-finger to the anti-Cheerios racists to have Mara and Jordan's characters be brother and sister from a bi-racial family? And if they had wanted to keep true to the comic origin, wouldn't it have been neat to see Marvel/Fox cast a black woman as the Invisible woman? (I could get on board with Kerry Washington as Sue Storm; Washington had played The Thing's love interest in the previous FF movies.)
Regardless, it's miles better than where we were in 2005 with Marvel and Fox white-washing (platinum blonde dye job and blue contacts) Jessica Alba beyond a point of recognition. Since Elba was cast as Heimdall, it's hard to imagine anyone else in that role. Marvel and Fox are hoping for the same with Mara, Teller, Jordan, and Bell.