In 1961, Atlas/Timely were struggling to find a way into the booming comic book market. DC Comics (known then as National Periodicals) and EC were the major comic book companies at the time. DC Comics, of course, were undisputedly the first to create the 20th century’s first blockbuster superheroes. Known for their two top titles, Batman and Superman, DC Comics were a powerhouse who didn’t get lazy after creating those landmark characters. They launched a book called The Justice League Of America starring those same superheroes, except on a team together. They were a phenomenal success. The fans went wild and the rest was history. But that didn’t have a good effect on the publisher of Atlas/Timely, Martin Goodman. He was under heavy pressure to create something to compete with the J.L.A. Goodman then turned to Stanley Lieber, a writer who had been involved with many of the sci-fi/horror comics at Atlas/Timely, and a man who also happened to be Goodman’s nephew. When Goodman called, Lieber immediately got down to business and found a collaborator he thought would be perfect for the job: Jack Kirby. Together, they wrote a story involving four astronauts who go through unknown cosmic radiation on the way out of Earth’s atmosphere and get forever changed. Reed Richards, A.K.A. Mr. Fantastic, gains the ability to stretch his body into a number of incredible shapes. Ben Grimm, A.K.A. The Thing, gained a rocky, orange exterior and a surge of incredible new strength. Johnny Storm, A.K.A. The Human Torch, could now burst into flame and fly. But Susan Storm, A.K.A. The Invisible Woman, could not be found. The group went looking for her and found her. Unfortunately, they could only hear her voice. They then figured out she had the ability to become invisible and, once she learned how to control it, could create invisible force fields. The Fantastic Four were a strange group of superheroes. They got along more as a family than a team. They bickered, fought and struggled with each other constantly. They wore no costumes and made no attempts at keeping their powers secret. They also had an extraordinary villain: Victor Von Doom, A.K.A. Dr. Doom. Von Doom was a college adversary of Richards and the two had some explosive verbal battles in college and their struggles never ceased. The Fantastic Four became one of the most popular comic book series ever made, a failing company called Atlas/Timely became Marvel Enterprises and a young writer with a fantastic vision named Stanley Lieber became the man we know today as Stan Lee.

Walking onto the Vancouver sets of Twentieth Century Fox’s new blockbuster movie “The Fantastic Four”, to be released summer 2005, was both exhilarating and doubtful. The doubtful portion comes because I had not made my mind up to whether the movie will be good or not. When the cast was announced, sorry to say, I was underwhelmed. I don’t care what people think about him, I always thought George Clooney would have been an awesome Reed Richards. Maybe a little Vincent D’Onofrio for Ben Grimm. But when the cast was announced, I was stunned to see that they were filled with unprovens and, even worse, television actors: Michael Chiklis (“The Shield”), Jessica Alba (“Dark Angel”) and Julian McMahon (“Nip/Tuck”). Plus a guy I had never seen before named Ioan Gruffudd (“King Arthur”) and a teen actor, Chris Evans (“Cellular”). I don’t really watch a lot of television so I don’t have a lot of exposure to some of these actors. But after seeing them in person, my views were changed a bit. I discovered Chiklis is physically very similar to The Thing, with his bald head and wide structure. McMahon has a very menacing face and a suave personality to match, which could be perfect for the evil businessman character of Dr. Doom. Gruffudd looks like he could pull off Reed Richards, even if I am still reeling for Clooney in that role and I have heard good things about him from “King Arthur”. Evans has a cocky persona in person and Johnny Storm can’t be too hard of a character to pull off so maybe there’s hope for him yet. But Alba has a long way to go in proving that she could pull off Susan Storm. She may have a very pretty face, but her past work has proven that solid talent remains to be seen.

To start things off, associate producer David Gorder guided us through all of the sets and also provided some good anecdotes. The first set we toured was the Baxter Building, the headquarters of the FF, which was located in Mammoth Studios. Mammoth Studios is the largest soundstage in North America. It was also used in “X2” as Stryker’s base. Gorder explains, “This is where the Fantastic Four reside. Reed built these contraptions and gadgets to do experiments on the Fan Four, test their powers. This is also the home to the reversion chamber, which will be a key plot point in the movie…It’s an important device that Reed has invented to help the Fantastic Four discover what their powers are.” After the space mission gone awry, Reed invites the rest of the group to live with him in the building, a secluded area where they won’t be seen or judged by the public. The set we saw was half completed, with two weeks of work still to be finished. In the movie we will be seeing eight rooms in the building, including all of the character’s bedrooms. Although there won’t be a lot of the gadgets the book’s fans love in the building or any of the Fantastic cars or planes, there will be a fight scene that happens there, Gorder tells us: “You can have a whole entire movie on its own here…[but] with the first movie we’d just like to introduce it. And then hopefully in the second and third movies we’ll get more into it, and we’ll get more plot and action taking place in the Baxter Building. But there will be a pretty exciting scene that happens in the third act that will take place here, but I’m not going to tell you what it is.” A huge set, the Baxter Building is supposed to be located in the heart of midtown Manhattan. The Marine Building in Vancouver is what will actually be used in the movie, with a matte painting done on top of it to transform it into the Baxter Building. Outside of the windows will be a fake New York skyline that will probably be so real the viewer would not know the difference. There will also be a “very exciting” cameo that happens in the lobby of the building, but, of course, Gorder will not reveal the secret. He says the original Jack Kirby designs were used to create the Baxter Building, keeping it true to the vintage comics. This was also done because they wanted a striking contrast to the Von Doom building, which is a sleek and powerful-looking skyscraper and very different from the “crazy inventor” look of the Baxter Building.

Next we journeyed to Vancouver Film Studios, where in visual effects supervisor Kurt Williams’ office we got to check out some designs and pictures and got a chance to talk to the man himself about his ideas for this very special effects-laden movie. I got a chance to look at some of the test photos on the walls and, I have to say, they were very impressive. The Human Torch looked amazing. Basically a walking fireball, the design was surprisingly realistic and very in touch with the comic books. Williams showed us a quick test video of The Human Torch flying into the sky. It was a simple test video but an amazing example of how far CGI has come in today’s movies. I was shocked when informed the entire video was CGI, with the exception of a still photo that was used for part of the background. The other photos and video we saw involved Mr. Fantastic. That character was especially hard as his power is to stretch and tangle his body, and making that look realistic would be a hard task. The video of that was very CGI, and not quite as good as the Torch, I found. But it still looked amazing and should look quite cool on the big screen.

So how much did Marvel’s original ideas influence Williams’ effects? “I needed to give [director Tim Story] a skill set for each character that will develop throughout the movie and relate to the character’s emotions and things like that that allow us to develop the characters from the first time they’re hit with the cosmic rays all the way to the end of the movie as they become the Fantastic Four.” Williams explains, “So obviously, the very first thing we did was go back to the comic book and our job was to find images in the comic book that could translate to a live-action photo reel movie and we went to great lengths to find, through all of the Marvel work, with Marvel’s help, the types of images they wanted to see as these characters develop.” One of the problems when creating the film’s special effects is that the comic books’ pictures can sometimes not translate well to the screen. “The difference is that some of the Marvel comic poses and some of the action required in the comic book don’t translate well to a live-action movie. One of the things we think about every time we work on a shot is, ‘Is that character organic?’ and ‘Does it have attributes from our world that have a true physics to it?’ For instance with Mr. Fantastic, when he stretches we always felt like he needed to have an organic feel, like a muscularture and an anatomical set of rules that apply to humans. A lot of times in the books, especially with Fantastic, his stretching is very tubular in nature and one of the things that will help us translate from the comic book to the movie is to create a weight and a physics that apply in a real world.”

The other challenge was, of course, the obstacle of creating the moving fireball that is The Human Torch. “In the very beginning of the movie, he snaps his fingers and flames shoot up. It starts very small. And that’s going to feel like an actual flame element that doesn’t necessarily take over his body.” Williams says, “Later on, his skills become more refined and he has to actually create heat, and flame has to come off of his body as a result. So what we’re doing is creating various layers…we’ve got about six or seven layers that we could put into any one shot, depending upon its intent and how hot he’s getting. When he goes supernova he’s going to be getting very white hot. When he does go supernova and gets white hot, what happens is the heat will come off his hands, and, like a solar flare off of the sun, as it lifts off the hot surface, in the case of Johnny [Storm], that heat will be exposed to oxygen and will create flame, just out of the surface of his hand.”

After touring the art department and a look at some blueprints and samples, we then toured the V-shaped Von Doom office set and got to check out the hole The Thing made when he escaped the Quarantine Facility in Victor’s compound. When this was all over, we moved on to the press conference. In this press conference was producer Avi Arad, actor Michael Chiklis (The Thing), actor Chris Evans (Human Torch), actress Jessica Alba (Invisible Girl), director Tim Story, actor Ioan Gruffudd (Mr. Fantastic), actor Julian McMahon (Dr. Doom) and producer Ralph Winter.

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