Screen Rant is today reporting two announcements made by 20th Century Fox regarding their planned continuation of the Fantastic Four franchise, the next instalment of which is tentatively titled Fantastic Four Reborn.

The first announcement informs us that The Thing will be rendered entirely in CGI, the practical effects suit worn by Michael Chiklis clearly The Thing of the past. While the suit might have jarred with the state-of-the-art special effects used elsewhere in the series – particularly in the second instalment, Rise Of The Silver Surfer – it was always an impressive piece of engineering.

The second tidbit of information centres on the plans for the films production, the reboot itself currently on hold pending the completion of X-Men: First Class. The fact that First Class doesn’t start filming until September 21st of this year, therefore, means that we will be light on news regarding Reborn for a while to come.

While the first two Fantastic Four movies are often derided, their lightness of tone served the source material well and provided a welcome break from the recent strive for darkness and realism. While by no mean perfect, the jury is still out as to whether or not a reboot was ever actually necessary; CGI Thing or no.

Reported by Steven Neish