Michael B. Jordan Responds to Human Torch Rumors

There's a difference between ameliorating a problem and making it worse. That said, I would be fine with a Native American, Asian, or Latino Luke Cage if the Actor was right. The Rock is Polynesian and I think he could do it. But a White Luke Cage doesn't make sense since there are already a zillion white characters.

In addition, for some characters race matters (Captain America, Thor, Shang Chi, Black Panther) while for others it does not (Human Torch, Spider-man, Cyclops).

He wouldn't fit Johnny's hot headedness. He's a good actor, but he is NOT Human Torch. But anybody would be better than that crap-ass actor in the original.

@captain13 said:

@teerack: Those are big assumptions about the average movie goer. And this is an opportunity to educate people about what family means instead of letting stereotypes fester. In addition, this would be good for the franchise because it expands the target demographic.

"Ohana means family;family means nobody gets left behind." Lilo and Stitch

Edit: And the adopted siblings thing has already been done on a major TV network, with 5 seasons of success.

=_= ugh, sorry but reading you're comment caused my eyes to roll. First the show that you decided to reference handled adoption like a stereotype. I mean it just went all over the map of stereotyped scenarios so poor example.

Besides 90210 is total trash, it got cancelled this year and was only renewed because they wanted it syndicated even though the ratings were terrible. The CW has low standards for ratings.

Stop with the "this is an opportunity to educate people" crap, do a film for that. This is a movie based on a family/team that has been around for decades and is it too hard to base it off the source material? We have yet to have a well done Fantastic Four movie before we turn it into a social commentary. We have plenty of tv shows to teach this topic, some better than others.

Lets teach what family means...=_= I know plenty of people who have an adopted sibling or were adopted that don't feel such a intense bond with their "family". Heck, I'm not adopted and I'm not super close to my siblings. Three of us lived in one room till we were teens and I can't even tell you what their favorite color is. Family isn't all consuming for everyone.

And if we are going with disney's feelings about families then lets have Sue's mom die when she's young and be raised by her father and stepmom or he can just stay single. At least this would explain why Sue acts like Johnny's mother all the time.

This expands the target demo? Yup adding one black guy will just draw people to this movie...mhmm that's how it works >_> To expand the demo you'll need to diversify the cast more than that, but you mainly need it to be a good movie.

Marvel has quite a few diverse characters, give them a headlining movie or give them an intro in a well known's movie then branch them into a solo. That's how you reach a broader audience, changing a race of a character is just lazy. Heck warmachine could've had a solo movie but they stripped his character down in the 3rd movie so it'd be harder to branch off with him.

This thread is so messy. I'm just going to throw my two pennies in and run away.

I'm of the mind that source material really deserves a ton more respect than it ever seems to get from these companies. A lot of fans are paying to ostensibly see an adaptation -- something from one medium simply translated into a new medium. They don't usually desire distortion.

When you've got something like, say, Shakespeare, where anyone who wants to can put on a show and thousands of people have done so over the years, then sure, I understand mixing with the formula, changing gender and color and whatnot, tossing time period out the window in favor of something different. But when you're spending millions of dollars to create perhaps the only cinematic representation of a beloved property that will ever be made, for goodness' sake, film the characters and story and background people have spent years learning to love. Don't screw with it.

Honestly, it's a jump on a bandwagon. Already Electro's been changed, but at least his LOOK makes a bit of sense since its a more genetic infective thing in the Ultimate universe.

But I am sorry, but changing Johnny Storm's race just for the heck of it (like it looks like to me at least) is no excuse. The 616 universe has him as Caucasian, the Ultimate universe has him Caucasian. And the "charred" look thing is no excuse either. Honestly, it sounds racist point blank.

Now I like Mike B. I really do. I was heartbroken when his character was killed in Chronicle (I really hated it that he died first. Freaking slasher movie stereotypes.) But this will certainly piss off old timer fans as well as make new readers double take when Johnny Storm in the series is NOTHING like the Johnny Storm in the film. At least Electro is used sparingly due to his villain status. Human Torch is either Fantastic Foundation-ing every month or hanging out with Spidey.

seconded

Call it racism if you want to, you short sighted buffoons, ( if you were offended at that, then I'm talkin to you) but it's really not racism at all. I hate when they change characters up so much ( I still get that feeling of my skin crawling when I see Samuel L. as Nick Fury- I don't care for the 616 universe even though I love his performances, to me it's not the REAL Nick Fury ). Essentially what those changes do is break the connection I have forged with those characters over the time I have come to know them in their original incarnations, not enhance my enjoyment at all... on any level. Some slight changes can be overlooked if I try- ie. organic web shooters, but I still call violation on any changes that exist...

so, call me a purist- not a racist, it's more accurate

Now thats more like it.

You know what the problem is? That everyone seems to think that whenever most of the cast of a comic book movie is white, then the studios are somehow trying to be racist!

The fact is, nothing about racism has changed, except that we're just looking at it in the exact opposite way. If people were smart, they'd stop giving a sh*t about how many of the characters were whatever race, and thus stop unnecessarily changing it because Hollywood is so dumb!

There's no reason to change the race of preexisting character. New characters of different ethnic backgrounds can be created, and they can be successful if a legitimate effort was made by publishers to put talented writers and artists on the titles with good promotion. When the new characters gain substantial popularity they can be featured in their own films.

it costs too much to see a movie now a days - if I don't like the casting, or any other thing in particular, they wont get my money.

simple as that

ok michael. how about we make a movie where rosa parks is played by betty white? what do you think about that? is it still 2013?

I'm a colored person (malay/asian), and I think if movie makers would use a different ethnicity for a character established as another, it's no problem. However, what would people of color think if a movie about Martin Luther King Jr. will be portrayed by an actor of lighter complexion (i refrain from using the "r" word, since we are all the same species)?

I think the most logical way of seeing this is if a character is well established as a certain skin complexion (as opposed to the "r" word), that we, as and audience/reader should be given the proper satisfaction of seeing the character in its original incarnation, and not explore new avenues just to creat hype and publicity.

dummy

So, he is adopted or is Sue Storm black too? You have to change two characters. People need Sue to be blond. It looked weird with Jessica Alba obviously dyed blond. It's stupid. I suppose next they are going to make Wonder Woman blond and act like it shouldnt matter.

See my quote and stop making ridiculous comparisons.

@captain13: ummm no. i dont like your quote. i'll continue to make ridiculous comparisons as long as they continue to do these kind of things.

I hate it when there's a race change. Just leave it alone please...i'm not white only half and even i get annoyed when directors and whatnot wanna change stuff to the extreme. Like the Mandarin twist, why cast Ben Kingsley when he's not even Oriental?

Why not just create more characters who are an ethnic minority instead of creating alternates of classic characters who people really wanna see the original versions of on the big screen?

I would however love to see the Alpha Vampire from Supernatural play a Black Dr. Doom..that would be fantastic.

No no, not at all. What I meant was, that in a perfect world we shouldn't need to alter established characters to make up for the past. Ideally it would be nice if there were enough strong well established characters available from every facet of humanity.

I'd have hoped that by 2013 we wouldn't need to even have this discussion. It simply should be. Should have been, long ago. The civil rights movement happened half a century ago but these issues still pop up.

I have few thoughts on this.

1) I don't like this actor to play Johnny, black or otherwise. Just doesn't have Johnny's swag about him.

2) I come to realize not to take everything to heart when it comes to Hollywood, they are going to put their own spin on things no matter what, so they mess with origins, motivation, powers, costumes etc all the time, why not a characters race,right?

which brings me to

3) If you change Johnny's race, you HAVE to change Sue's I feel. It would just detract from the feel of the movie because I would be focused on that brother/sister dynamic the whole movie. my brain can't handle it lol Yeah, you can go the step sibling route, but why? lol

I only read a few posts on here knowking the fanboys must be going NUTS!!! My question is if Sue Storm is going to be black too. Honestly I could care less. If it works it works. One of the posts that I read over quickly mentioned Sam Jackson as Nick Fury. It's funny about him. The black Nick Fury was obviously in the Ultimate Marvel world. He was in Ultimate X-Men, but he didn't look like Sam Jackson til he was drawn By Bryan Hitch in The Ultimates with an explination. With the Avengers/Ultimates sitting around together Mark Millar had them talking to each other asking what actor could play them in a movie and Sam Jackson brought up by Nick Fury himself. Rumors say Sam Jackson (being a comicbook fan) saw this, and was one of the reasons he agreed to the part. What ever. It worked. It worked well too. I want to see how they do the Johnny and Sue connection. I would have been happy if the remake was like the Ultimate FF, since I read book while Millar was on it, and it actually got me into the 616 FF. The orgin change was good fresh idea in how the FF obtained their powers. The whole Earth, fire, air, water, concept was awsome. If not for Mark Millar in the Ultimate work I would have never gotten into the Avengers either, and his later run on the Ultimate FF is so good, I'm surprised that it's never brought up, or recommended in any forums.

Technically, this is a new alternate universe, anything is possible and does not have bearing on the main universe than any other elseworld/"what if"/"alternate earth". Don't see what the big deal is with race changes (or any changes) for alternate realities. If the actor is bad, that is another issue, but independent of race.

Example, compare the current TV show of Sherlock homes to the current movies (with Downey Jr.): I like both and accept them for what they are; which is different realities. But now I wonder: are there people complaining that Watson and Moriarty are both female and one is oriental?

So the Fantastic four are gonna be black. Good luck

For a moment I thought you were talking about the english TV show and not the sucky US thing. Both Downey Jr's and Elementary are shit compared to BBC's Sherlock. And that's not an opinion, it's a fact.

I don't think they should change this ethnicity,I mean Human Torch is such a Iconic Character.He has alot of material and background story behind him,now I wouldn't be against it if it was a lesser known character.But its the Human Torch so please stay true to the material.

Isn't it also a bit cowardly to try and make Fantastic Four more racially diverse and go and change the ethnicity of the character least essential to the plot. Johnny was barely in Hickman's run. He also wasn't in the cartoon with Herbie.

I'd rather Johnny be white and that the actress they cast for Sue looks like him and she's slightly older. However if they do cast a non white actor for Johnny I want an actress of the same ethnicity for Sue. I think it's important that those two are recognizably siblings.

I’m kinda on the fence about this one. I think the main issue here is the history of minorities inclusion in this country. This has been kind off a debate throughout entertainment that I’ve seen with comic, television and film characters. On one hand, I kind of think it can be harmful to constantly look at ourselves as the “black version” of something else. But on the other hand, I do realize that a lot of the reason that we get so hyped about these characters, is because of their iconic legacies that have been steadily building, even before we were born. And people have to realize that though there where probably many capable black writers back in those days, their inclusion into mainstream entertainment (especially anything not behind the scenes and anything not buffoonery) was pretty much nonexistent. And by the time African American characters started being included in these comic book universes, they weren’t created by black writers and they were portrayed as the stereo typical one note personalities that were the majority of all black imagery being presented by Hollywood at the time. No one would ever expect characters like “Lobo” or “The Absorbing Man” to out shine or equal the popularity of characters like “Batman” or “Superman”, so why would “Luke Cage”? So I get that, in order to break years of programming to only see all African Americans as one or two personality types (the slick talking criminal, or the serious soldier) , they put them in these iconic character rolls, where their creators actually based their appeal of off cool sci fi concepts and indepth stories instead of just the hook of “Super Ethnicity Man”. But at this point, I think we get it. We’ve seen with Nick Fury, Spider-Man, Green Lantern and Iron Man, that black characters do work when the concept and story are actually cool. But the next step is for more black creators to get involved in creating new, actually awesome characters and realize your personality and story canvas in unlimited, from lawyers, doctors, thugs, college students, billionaires, aliens, whatever. Because, though I enjoyed watching “Good Times” growing up, I was very, very happy when “The Cosby Show” came around. But at the same time, I’m glad The Cosby Show was The Cosby Show and not “The New Ozzy and Harriet”.

Why do they think changing the colour of characters that fans have known for decades is a good idea? People are so obsessed with not being offensive and all this pathetic crap. Stick to the source material. He is white in the comics, therefore he should be white in the films. Perry White is white in the comics and they have cast him with Lawrence Fishburne. I ask why?

Let's see - - would this work or not? I say . . . NOT! Johnny and Sue Storm are biological siblings established many decades ago. Both are blond hair and blue eyed. Even in the Ultimate universe, they were originally portrayed thus (how they are currently, I have no idea as I don't follow the Ultimate universe any longer - - didn't some of the F4 die or something?).

Now if they want to make this dude the original android Human Torch and eventually turn him into the Vision, then I would have no problem with that. What if they proposed a white Luke Cage or *gasp!* "White" Panther? Let the uproar begin!

Michael Jordan from the 1993 Chicago Bulls?! YES!!!

@master_thief: Donald Glover.... Miles Van Morales was created because they thought of it a great idea when they saw him in spiderman pajamas in the show Community

I think they should stick to the source material. What if some kid saw the movie and then wanted to try the comics? That would be a bit counfusing. I don't think it is racist to stick to the source material. I wouldn't want Black Panther, Blade, or Luke Cage to switch races either.

"Things change and time goes on, it's 2013 right now," Jordan says of the Torch talk. "The characteristics of the Human Torch are his name is Johnny Storm, he's charismatic, and he's a playboy. That's it. You know what I'm saying? That's all there is."

BAM. Hit the nail on the head. Anyone b*tching about him not being white is racist, plain and simple. THIS IS FICTION PEOPLE - HUMAN TORCH ISN'T REAL. Who cares if he is black? as long as he is still shooting fire, I'm fine....

Edit: you idiots in this thread people are deliberately changing skin colours? well news flash - NO THEY AREN'T. It's 2013! Casting agents will pick actors they think are best, regardless of skin colour. Nobody is specifically looking for a 'black johnny storm'

QFT! People really don't understand white privilege

I wish it were possible for the people calling people racist in this thread to truly understand how stupid they are.... but then they wouldn't as stupid.... it's an endless loop!

it's really not a big deal, as long as the spirit of the character is there

Yo, if you've actually watched Chronicle and don't think this guy is perfect for Johnny Storm, then I cannot imagine what is wrong with you.

LETS JUST MAKE EVERY WHITE MALE CHARACTER BLACK GAY AND FEMALE, YA KNOW CAUSE ITS ALL ABOUT THE ACTOR RIGHT??

P.S. If johnnys black so should be invisible girl.....

Thought a bit more about this, and I wanted to add to my earlier thoughts (that source material really should be respected) that the reason there are so many white characters in the movies is because the characters were white in the comics. It's a problem in the comics themselves that should be fixed there, not in a movie, and not in a move which is guaranteed to generate a tremendous amount of controversy.

A company like Marvel should be more intentional about showcasing the diverse heroes they already have, and in creating and supporting new ones. Granted, part of your issue is that you have decades' worth of almost-all-white characters who, because comic book time doesn't really exist, are cluttering the stage and are hard to usurp without killing (and that's a whole new argument). But still: the solution is to change the comics you are adapting into movies; not mess with the characters while adapting comics to film.

I'll use Spider-Man as an example. I would be furious if they cast a black actor as Peter Parker. Because Peter Parker is white. It's as simple as that. If you want to introduce diversity into a Spider-Man film, do one of two things. Either introduce some really cool new villains who are non-white, or make a Spider-Man film about Miles. Use the non-white characters, or make new ones. Don't arbitrarily change pre-existing ones.

I've already talked about this in previous threads, so i'll just slightly touch on this.

1. This guy, excluding his skin color, is johnny storm through and through. If you've watched any of his movies, most notably chronicle, then you know why.

2. You have to understand that the ratio of white superheroes to minority superheroes in general, is completely laughable. If someone somehow calculated this into a percentage, i'd be shocked if minority characters made up more than 4% of overall superheroes. So to try and switch the scenarios, thus implying that they would have the same effect, would simply be ignorant of the situation that comics face when it comes to ethnicity.

3. Now that doesn't mean that I whole-heartedly with this. Am I happy about it. No. Am I angry about it no. I'm indifferent. I would prefer though that they make movies using already established minority characters. So in a way I slightly dislike it. Its an half-assed way of getting black characters on screen. But then again, marvel doesn't oversee fantastic four, and spiderman (electro). So I can't really expect much from sony in keeping things original to comics. DC on the other hand, can be held accountable for Lauren Fishburne playing Perry White. But then again they don't even use their other white superheroes, So their black ones would be even further down the line.

4. I get one conclusion from this, hollywood is much further along than comics when it comes to race, and its consistently being displayed by these types of castings. Hollywood truly doesn't care about race or ethnicity. There has been countless minority characters with lead roles. So when they approach comic book movies, they are seeing this from a different lens. So i've stopped pointing the finger at hollywood and directors, when it comes to race representation in comic book movies. This all comes down to the core. Marvel and DC need to do a better job in establishing better awareness/ popularity to their minority characters, or even make new ones. Sentry was created recently, and if he was handled right, he would be among the most popular comic book characters at the moment. Heck, he still is, even after his death. This is because he was at the center of the marvel universe at a certain time. I don't see why new black superheroes can't use this same formula. I think that if there were popular black superheroes in abundance, there wouldn't be a need to change the race of many white super hero characters.

This feels like a gimmick, a way to grab headlines. Colour aside, he's not a good fit as Johnny Storm and he's not that great an actor to transform himself to the character.

@novi_homines: What an excellent comment, too bad most of the people here will ignore it and continue with their low-lying racism. I don't really think Hollywood is trying to purposely make Johnny Storm black to shove in minority characters - they just happen to have their eye on Michael B. Jordan because (in my opinion) he's the upcoming 'it' boy with real charm.

@fodigg: So true. Sadly, its because all the 'nerdboys' just wanted to see Jessica Alba in tight spandex...Also she was insanely whitewashed.

I think that he would play the role very well i don't think there is any debate on that but it wouldnt seem right to have him play as Johnny Storm. Only because you want to try to capture the look of the character, and also Johnny has a sister it would have been better if he was a stand alone character like Moon Knight, it wouldnt be such a big deal. Because I would be pissed if they casted like Vin Diesel for Luke Cage.

They based the black Nick Fury off Samuel Jackson to begin with (personality of the characters he plays and his likeness), and then paid the man to play the part on the big screen. So yeah he was black in the comics first, but he was based off a black actor.

I wanna see some previews before I judge. Comics and Movies are a different medium, and the majority of people won't care whom plays whom as long the movie is good. Also, if the guy can't beat Chris Evans as JS than no he is not worthy and Fox will have wasted my time and money.

He would be great as Johnny Storm

In what way does Johnny being white play a role in his characterization? None.

It should just be about the acting in the case of a character as simple Johnny. Now if this was Jon Stewart, Virgil Hawkins, T'Challa, Steve Rogers, Thor or Luke Cage where their race does place a role in characterization then maybe there you would have a case, but here Johnny Storm = young playboy, a hot-head and a brother. Nothing indicates that he MUST be white.

Also, they could easily make it that Mary Storm was black for the movie.

And everybody saying he can't be Johnny Storm clearly haven't seen him in Friday Night Lights.

You just contradicted yourself.

I hope this is a joke, I mean with electro its fine but this is going to far, sue will be black 2 since they are brother and sister, Ben will be a rasict for laughing at jonny , omg wtf are they doing... are they trying to ruin another FF?!?!?!?