Michael B. Jordan Slams His Fantastic Four Casting Critics

When Marvel announced that Michael B. Jordan would be playing The Human Torch in ‘Fantastic Four’ people seemed pretty disappointed.

After Marvel had revealed that Michael B. Jordan was going to play as The Human Torch there was uproar on the internet. People criticized the selection of Jordan as Johnny Storm in the Fantastic Four movie.

However Jordan did not stay quiet and finally responded to all these Internet trolls and criticisms by writing an open letter in Entertainment Weekly. Jordan, 28 stated that he checked the Internet to see the responses to his casting as Johnny Storm who was originally written to be blond with blue eyes in the Fantastic Four comics and he found out some very disturbing comments.

A photo posted by michaelbjordan (@michaelbjordan) on /5/20, 2015 at 7:01pm PDT

Jordan found comments such as “A Black guy? I don’t like it. They must be doing it because Obama’s president” and “they’ve destroyed it.”  So after reading these comments Jordan could not help himself from responding to such comments. In the letter Jordan wrote that such comments used to bother him a lot but now he is used to it.

He also wrote that he has seen everyone’s perspective and he cannot expect or ask the audience to forget 50 years of comic books but the world now is much more different and diverse than it used to be in 1961 when the first Fantastic Four comic was released. 

In his letter he also stated that many people think that his selection as Johnny Storm is being seen as a political decision or maybe an attempt to meet a racial quota but it was nothing more than a creative choice by the director, Josh Trank. He also explained that Trank was himself in an interracial relationship which is a reflection of a modern family these days. 

Jordan then in his letter explained the fundamental message and value the movie wanted to deliver to the masses. He explained that the movie is about four friends, two of whom are Jordan himself and Kate Mara who will be his adopted sister and these four friends are brought together by a series of unfortunate events to create a team.

This he stated was the real message of the movie if people would open their minds and realize it. Further in his letter he expressed his vision that people would not see each other in terms of race and he stated that maybe if he sets an example through this role, the film industry would start considering more people of color in other prominent roles.

Jordan then urged the critics to embrace diversity and change their mindsets. He asked the trolls on the Internet to go outside and see the world today where people are putting behind such mindsets. 

‘The Fantastic Four’ is a superhero movie which is based on Marvel’s comics of the same title. It tells a story about a superhero team which consists of four people, each with different special abilities. Apart from Michael B. Jordan as The Human Torch there is Miles Teller as Reed Richards, Jamie Bell as Ben Grimm and Kate Mara as Susan Storm. The movie is said to be released in the US on August 7th. 

New trailer for @marvel first family The Fantastic Four!! http://t.co/vGeLgl1H3x #HumanTorch— Michael B Jordan (@michaelb4jordan) April 20, 2015