Director Josh Trank has taken action to distance himself from the critically derided reboot of Fantastic Four, appearing to claim that the studio, 20th Century Fox, was at fault for interfering with his “fantastic” vision of the movie.

The movie, which is the third such attempt to launch a big screen franchise out of the Marvel Comics tale, has been roundly panned by reviewers in the last couple of days since its August 4th premiere. Starring Miles Teller, Kate Mara, Jamie Bell, Michael B. Jordan and Toby Kebbell, it currently holds a 9% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, making it the worst reviewed superhero movie of 2015 thusfar.

Toby KebbellToby Kebbell stars as the villain in the new 'Fantastic Four' movie

31 year old director Trank, who previously directed the well-received sci-fi movie Chronicle in 2012, wrote in a quickly deleted tweet: “A year ago I had a fantastic version of this. And it would’ve received great reviews. You’ll probably never see it. That’s reality though.”

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It’s capping off a difficult year for Trank, who was hired and then suddenly dropped by Lucasfilm and Disney as the director of one of the upcoming ‘Star Wars’ spin-off movies. Rumours of on-set difficulties such as production issues and re-shoots – one of which took place as late as April this year – can’t have helped but reflect badly on him.

Fox had enforced a reviews embargo until the week of the blockbuster’s release, in a tactic that now looks suspiciously like damage limitation to the eyes of most critics. Rolling Stone posted probably the unkindest review of all, with their critic Pete Travers writing “Everyone pretends to be excited by Reed [Miles Teller]’s invention, a teleporter which can transport a monkey into an alternate dimension. Since this movie has no dimension at all, everyone is envious of the monkey.”

The Hollywood Reporter, considered to be the go-to publication to get an insight into the industry, predicts that Fantastic Four will open to $40 million in its opening week, with a dramatic drop-off once word gets around.

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