Eagerly one of the most anticipated movies of the year, Josh Trank's "The Fantastic Four" is scheduled for release on Aug. 6, 2015 in the United Kingdom and Aug. 7, 2015 in North America, in 2D and 3D theaters.

This marks the third theatrical "Fantastic Four" motion picture to be distributed by 20th Century Fox, however it may be a hard sell for fans of the beloved comic book quartet. The original 2005 "Fantastic Four" film directed by Tim Story only grossed $329 million worldwide, with its 2007 sequel "Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer" taking $278 million worldwide in global box office sales.

That's not all. Bam! Smack! Pow! reports that Diamond Select Toys, which is licensed by Marvel to produce figurines and other merchandise, announced it would no longer produce any Fantastic Four products. Marvel Comics, which has been unsatisfied with the efforts at 20th Century Fox in generating a successful franchise with their characters, has gone on record in not support the film's release, hoping perhaps to take the characters and add them to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. With Marvel having announced the end of the Fantastic Four comic book series in April, no toy merchandise and writers being commanded not to go forth with any other Fantastic Four comics, there won't be any new "Fantastic Four" material on shelves.

Heavily influenced by the Marvel's "Ultimate Fantastic Four" comics that premiered in 2004 as part of its Ultimate Marvel imprint, the film will follow a "modernized re-imagining" of the long-running series, placing the titular team in a hyper-modernized context with the origin of their powers involving a malfunctioned teleporter experiment by young genius Reed Richards (played by Michael Teller) and class rival Victor Domashev (Victor Van Damme in the comics; played by Toby Kebbell).

In the comics, Domashev claims Reed's calculations are wrong, reprogramming its coordinates without telling anyone and ultimately changes the setup at the last minute, causing the calamity. Like the comic that inspired the story, the team will also be much younger that they are written in the original comics, with the teens being a product of a government think-tank of child prodigies. This differs drastically from the source of the premiere "Fantastic Four" comic books, which followed four astronauts that become unlikely heroes after failing a mission to hijack a space-rocket in effort to beat communists.

The project, penned several times since planned, began circulating shortly after "Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer" hit theatres. Neophyte Jeremy Slater wrote the first rendition of the screenplay before duties were given to Seth Grahame-Smith ("Dark Shadows") and, finally, Simon Kinberg ("X-Men: Days of Future Past").

Bleeding Cool reported that:

"It was a story that Bleeding Cool first only offered as a possibility, but as more and more evidence came in, it became more and more likely.

"That, as a result of Disney's highest single shareholder and Marvel CEO Isaac Perlmutter's anger with Fox Studios over negotiations regarding the film-and-related rights to The Fantastic Four, that Marvel would cancel the Fantastic Four comic rather than provide any promotion, however small it might be, towards the Fox Studios film. Merchandise and licenses were scrapped and even Fantastic Four posters in the offices were pulled down lest Perlmutter see one and have his ire raised."

Making their debut on the cover of The Fantastic Four #1, the characters of the fictional superhero team -- Reed Richards (Mr. Fantastic), Sue Storm (The Invisible Woman), Ben Grimm (The Thing) and Johnny Storm (The Human Torch) -- was Marvel's first new superhero comic book title in November 1961, launching the Silver Age of Comics when writer-editor Stan Lee and artist/co-plotter Jack Kirby came together in the development of the comic.