If you were hoping to binge watch the original FANTASTIC FOUR movies in advance of the release of Josh Trank's reboot, you are out of luck unless you own the DVDs. 20th Century Fox has elected to remove both of Tim Story's original films from platforms like Amazon and iTunes so as to keep focus on the new version of the film.
While manipulating the availability of films related to a new release is not a new marketing tactic, you tend to find movies are pushed to the forefront to capitalize on their association. When THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN hit theaters, the Sam Raimi films were re-released to try and boost sales for the new movie. With JURASSIC WORLD and TERMINATOR: GENISYS debuting soon, all of the preceding films in the franchises are getting nice new covers to try and make some extra money in the process.
The key difference in this case is that most people disliked the campy FANTASTIC FOUR movies released in 2005 and 2007. While I think seeing the original and the new Josh Trank version in succession would be like binging the Adam West Batman TV series before watching Christopher Nolan's BATMAN BEGINS, Fox is not going to risk any more bad publicity for their new film.
FANTASTIC FOUR has endured a lot of scrutiny thanks to the change in ethnicity for Johnny Storm while Marvel Comics cancelled the comic book featuring the characters. Whether any of this has an bearing on the quality of Trank's film is unknown, Fox has already greenlit the sequel for 2017. Here's to hoping the movie proves us all wrong when it hits theaters.
FANTASTIC FOUR hits theaters August 7th.
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