The Director of FANTASTIC FOUR Slept With a Gun Because of The Human Torch Casting Backlash

Over the past few days, we’ve shared several articles about Fantastic Four director Josh Trank that shed some light on the kind of person that he is, and why the film ended up being as awful as it was. It’s like the crazy stories don’t stop with this guy!

In a recent profile and interview with Polygon, the director also talked about the casting of Michael B. Jordan in the role of the Human Torch. Trank said he had the idea to cast him early on in development. But, like a lot of casting decisions in Hollywood, there was some pushback from some of the fans after that casting was announced.

“For the world I grew up in, a racially intense Los Angeles where we were used to seeing white superheroes, some of my friends who were black should have seen a black superhero [...] so I felt that while being in a position of power, I could change the system a little bit," Trank said about the casting of Jordan.”

Trank said the backlash for casting Jordan was so bad that he even slept with a gun after receiving numerous death threats and disturbing messages. He said:

“I was getting threats on IMDb message boards saying they were going to shoot me. I was so fucking paranoid during that shoot. If someone came into my house, I would have ended their fucking life. When you’re in a head space where people want to get you, you think, ‘I’m going to defend myself.’"

Trank revealed that he kept a .38 Special loaded on his nightstand just in case. He also said that he returned the gun after production on Fantastic Four wrapped. But, wouldn’t those threats have gotten worse after the movie came out due to how bad the movie was?

I don’t know. This just doesn’t seem like something you would want people to know about unless you’re looking for attention. You don’t hear about other actors and directors saying they sleep with a loaded gun next to them because of crazy fans. Maybe they do, but they don’t talk about it!