Now that every single big superhero title out there has been made into a movie or has a movie on the way, the new popular trend is to take the ones that for the most part failed, and “reboot” or “re-imagine” them. The newest movie rumored to be heading for a new vision, is Fantastic Four.

Fantastic Four had a $100 Million budget and only made $154 Million domestically, but they did pull down $330 Million worldwide which isn’t too bad. The sequel — Rise of the Silver Surfer – didn’t fare as well, costing $130 Million to make and bringing in $131 Million domestic (ouch). Worldwide, they made $289 Million.

The iffy-but-decent box office take was the high point, if you can believe it. The first movie received mixed, but mostly negative reviews; the sequel was hated by most.

With the success of The Dark Knight, everyone simply wants to stop making cheesy comic fare and making the darker and/or more realistic superhero tales with hopes that fans will eat it up. In every case, this means entirely new cast and crew — an entirely new take on the story and characters.

With Batman, the character and setting were already fairly dark, so it was primed for that reboot. With Fantastic Four, I’m not sure it could be rebooted at all. Keep in mind, this is all rumor at the moment, so even if this does happen, there’s no word that it would be one of those darker re-imaginings. Personally, I don’t see those characters or that world being much darker than it already was (which wasn’t much); and aside from that, where else could they possibly go with it? Seems like a pointless thing to even think about, but eh, I’ve been wrong plenty of times.

[Source: IESB]