Related: David Oyelowo: I won't play 'the black best friend'  The makers of new comic book epic Fantastic Four have defended their decision to cast a black actor, Michael B Jordan, as a member of the iconic superhero ensemble.  A minority of fans took to Twitter to accuse studio 20th Century Fox of getting it wrong, after Jordan was announced as the new Johnny Storm/The Human Torch, last year. Last month, the actor wrote a piece for Entertainment Weekly accusing internet “trolls” of racism.  Interviewed in the LA Times magazine, director Josh Trank and co-writer Simon Kinberg encouraged fans to watch the film before writing it off. Trank observed he had been turned into a punch bag by the controversy, but also claimed he welcomed the debate. “I get it,” he said. “I have a lot of friends older than me who are comic fans and it’s really hard for them to be on board with a change. Fantastic Four has been theirs for longer than I’ve been alive. It hasn’t been mine.”  Related: Cameron Crowe apologises for casting Emma Stone as 'part-Asian' in Aloha  He added: “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. 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.”  Some fans have also expressed concern that the hulking Ben Grimm, who becomes mutated superhero The Thing in the comics, is to be played by 5ft 7in British actor Jamie Bell, in the new iteration. Kinberg said that the casting decision had been taken for a reason.  “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.”  He added: “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. 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.”  In his article for Entertainment Weekly, Jordan spoke out in strident terms against critics who felt a white actor should have been cast in his place. He wrote: “After taking on Johnny Storm in Fantastic Four – a character originally written with blond hair and blue eyes – I wanted to check the pulse out there. I didn’t want to be ignorant about what people were saying. Turns out this is what they were saying: ‘A black guy? I don’t like it. They must be doing it because Obama’s president’ and ‘It’s not true to the comic’. Or even, ‘They’ve destroyed it!’”  Related: Fantastic Four: watch the first trailer for the rebooted franchise  “To the trolls on the internet, I want to say: Get your head out of the computer. Go outside and walk around. Look at the people walking next to you. Look at your friends’ friends and who they’re interacting with. And just understand this is the world we live in. It’s OK to like it.”  Fantastic Four, which reaches UK cinemas on 6 August and the US a day later, is the third major big screen take on the famed Marvel Comics superhero quartet. It features an entirely new cast, including Kate Mara as Sue Storm/The Invisible Woman and Miles Teller as Reed Richards/Mr Fantastic, alongside Jordan and Bell.
Director Josh Trank says move to cast Michael B Jordan as Johnny Storm was taken to bring iconic comic book team into line with real-world demographics