Here’s why Jessica Alba considered quitting acting following Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer. The Fantastic Four are a superhero team made up of Mister Fantastic, the Invisible Woman, the Human Torch, and The Thing. The comic was co-created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, but despite their decades of popularity, Marvel’s “First Family” has had bad fortune when it comes to cinematic adaptations. Their first outing was 1994’s Fantastic Four movie, which was notoriously never even released. The project was made on a tiny budget by the producer as a way to hold on to the rights to the property, with Marvel subsequently purchasing and shelving the film so its perceived lack of quality wouldn’t taint the box-office potential of future Fantastic Four movies.
The foursomes’ most successful outings – at least in terms of box-office – are the Fantastic Four movies from the late 2000s. This duology of superhero films already look like relics in the post-MCU era, and outside of spirited turns by future Captain America star Chris Evans as Johnny Storm and Michael Chiklis as The Thing, there’s little to recommend them. The team’s most recent big-screen adventure was 2015’s Fantastic Four reboot by Josh Trank, a blockbuster that suffered through an infamously messy production that resulted in a dull, self-serious movie that few enjoyed.
Jessica Alba was particularly busy during the 2000s, appearing in the likes of Sin City and Dark Angel. Fantastic Four cast her as Sue Storm (AKA The Invisible Woman), who – like the rest of her team – is granted powers after being hit by cosmic energy clouds in space. While Alba is capable of delivering great work, she feels oddly wooden in 2005’s Fantastic Four, though the screenplay does little to help. Jessica Alba also considered quitting acting entirely during the filming of a particular Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer scene. This was during an emotional sequence for her character Sue Storm, where helmer Tim Story gave some deeply unhelpful direction about how she should perform the scene.
Alba told PopEater (via Vulture) that Story critiqued her performance during this Fantastic Four 2 (which nearly led to a Silver Surfer spinoff movie) scene that her performance was too “real” and “painful,” and asked if she could “… be prettier when you cry? Cry pretty, Jessica.” He also suggested she should flatten out her performance and they could CGI tears onto her character if need be. This made Alba question her abilities, leading her to question “Are my instincts and my emotions not good enough? Do people hate them so much that they don’t want me to be a person?“
Thankfully, despite this bad experience, Alba stuck with performing. Alba’s work in Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer is an improvement on Sue from the previous movie, though it’s disheartening to hear that Story – and probably the studio – wanted to focus on Alba’s looks than allowing her to flesh out the role.
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