Fantastic Four: Director talks about changing Johnny Storm's race and altering source material

Josh Trank, director of the upcoming superhero reboot - Fantastic Four, has been getting a lot of flak from comic book fans worldwide, for fiddling with the source material.

By casting Michael B Jordan as Johnny Storm/The Human Torch, Trank changed the race of an iconic comic book character who dates back to 1961 – a move that did not go down too well with fans. Apart from that, the director picked a relatively small, 5-foot-7 Jamie Bell to play one of the Marvel comics' great behemoths, Ben Grimm/The Thing, reports LA Times.

In their latest interview, Trank and Fantastic Four's co-writer and executive producer - Simon Kinberg addressed fan complaints and concerns regarding their 2015 reboot and justified their reasons for presenting a different take on 'Marvel's First Family.'

According to Trank, creators and filmmakers alike should remain open to fresh interpretations and be willing to stretch and bend, with changing times.

"It only speaks to the greatness of any story that has been told for decades or centuries that people still want to tell that story," Trank told LA Times.

"But you can't just keep telling it the same way over and over again. And I think it only helps the world to be more honest with young kids, to show them the world that they go walk outside and see."

Kinberg, who has also worked on several films in the X-Men franchise, says there were well-thought-out artistic reasons behind all of the film's casting decisions.

"The change of Jamie as Ben being a smaller guy instead of a bigger guy, for example, was for a purpose," he said.

"It's more dramatic when that character becomes a huge rock creature – that's a bigger transformation. The notion of a working-class tough guy who's been pushed around by his bigger brothers his whole life seemed like a more interesting character than the guy who started as a football player and just ended up being 4 inches taller."

Kinberg added that fans should wait before passing criticism on unconventional casting until they have seen the final film.

"I think it's true for a lot of movies that you can take license with adapting the underlying material and you will be forgiven for it if it's good – and you will not be if it's bad," he said. "If you look at Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, everybody was upset at first that Wolverine was tall and now nobody can imagine anybody else other than Hugh Jackman playing Wolverine."

Fantastic Four releases on 6 August 2015 in the UK and on 7 August in the US.