Fantastic Four studio "pushed back" against Black actress casting, says Josh Trank
Josh Trank has opened up about his proposal for casting a Black actress as Sue Storm in 2015 flop Fantastic Four.
Chatting to Geeks of Color, the director revealed that he'd originally envisioned the entire Storm family unit as Black, but apparently, 20th Century Fox had reservations over this groundbreaking plan.
Although Michael B. Jordan was brought onboard as the Human Torch (a.k.a Johnny Storm), the studio opted for Kate Mara as the Invisible Woman (Sue).
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"There [were] a lot of controversial conversations that were had behind-the-scenes on that," he noted. "I was mostly interested in a Black Sue Storm and a Black Johnny Storm, and a Black Franklin Storm.
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"But I also, when you're dealing with a studio on a massive movie like that, everybody wants to keep an open mind to who the big stars are going be. Like, 'Well maybe it will be Margot Robbie,' or something like that.
"But when it came down to it, I found a lot of pretty heavy pushback on casting a Black woman in that role."
Related: Fantastic Four's Josh Trank admits he felt "bitter" towards superhero genre when movie came out
Addressing his regrets over the situation, Trank added: "When I look back on that, I should've just walked when that sort of realisation hit me and I feel embarrassed about that, that I didn't, just out of principle, because those aren't the values that I stand for in my own life and those weren't the values then – or ever – for me.
"Because I'm somebody who always talks about standing up for what I believe in, even if it means burning my career up, and I feel bad that I didn't take it to the mat with that issue.
"I feel like I failed in that regard, but that was a weird, unfortunate situation, I don't know how else to put it," he concluded.
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