Fat Hobbit to Direct Fantastic Four?
Brazilian journalist Rodrigo Salem from SET Magazine, the biggest movie magazine in Brazil, went to New York and talked a bit to Sean Astin about his next projects now that Lord of the Rings has concluded. What he found out was that Mr. Astin may be Direc
Brazilian journalist Rodrigo Salem from SET Magazine, the biggest movie magazine in Brazil, went to New York and talked a bit to Sean Astin about his next projects now that Lord of the Rings has concluded. What he found out was that Mr. Astin may be Directing a Marvel comic book movie called The Fantastic Four...
SET: You were highly praised over your short movie The Long and Short of It which is in The Two Towers DVD. Do you have any plans of directing something bigger?
SEAN ASTIN: Oh, yeah! I always wanted to act and direct with the same intensity but only now I've found the way to get to directing. Right now I'm running to be the director of this US$ 100, US$ 130 million movie which the studio wants to release in the end of 2004 and it has a huge effect in pop culture. I got a meeting scheduled but I can't talk about it yet.
SET: Is it a comic book adaptation?
SA: You figured it out, huh?
SET: You're running for the director's chair of Fantastic Four, right?
SA: Yes.
SET: You've got some pretty heavy competition ahead of you. I heard Steven Soderbergh is interested and that he was offered the job by the studio specially because he could bring George Clooney as Reed Richards.
SA: Yeah but I'm a friend of George Clooney too (laughs). I think he would make a perfect Reed Richards.
SET: And who would be your Human Torch?
SA: Oh, he's right over there. Orlando Bloom.
And that's that. I don't know if you remember but a few months ago some sites reported that Astin was actually seen at a comic book store buying quite a lot of Fantastic Four comics. Guess he was making his homework. I just hope he picked some of the Stan Lee/Jack Kirby books. And John Byrne's. And some Mark Waid/Mike Wieringo too. I didn't know Soderbergh was even on the run.