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If at first you don't succeed, fail and fail again. That appears to be the strategy for this weekend's top new film, which attempts to revive one of the comic world's A+ properties that just hasn't connected. I, uh, have some bad news for them.

In theory, I don't have any problem with trying to trying to remake films that didn't work – in fact, those are the ones that should be remade, but done properly this time. The Fantastic Four movies fall well into this category, as the Tim Story films were a tragic mix of miscasting, shoddy FX and a confused tone, so there's lots of room for improvement there. The unfortunate part: none of that seems to have improved too much this time around.

Josh Trank was given the reins thanks to his surprise success at pulling something out of nothing with Chronicle, the found-footage superhero film. Whether that proves to be his flash in the pan, or whether there's just too much studio meddling here – or maybe it's a fundamentally unadaptable project (I find that hard to believe, c.f. The Avengers), but things don't look too good in any way shape or form. The cast has gone way young – in theory a decent move – with Reed Richards passing from aloof doofus Ioan Gruffudd to cocky douchebag Miles Teller, the Invisible Woman to Kate Mara, The Thing to Jamie Bell (conspicuously absent from the ads and press campaign) and Johnny Storm going to Michael B. Jordan and you know what, I don't want to hear it, comic nerds.

The problem with the project comes from the lack of anything remotely interesting looking in the ads, which rarely rise above “It's the Fantastic Four! And they're doin' stuff!” Considering this was once upon a time the flagship property of Marvel comics, this is a bit of a problem. Nowhere is the sense of adventure that made Spider-Man such a hit, the spectacle and discovery that made the X-Men work, or the humor and action of Iron Man and the other MCU properties. Instead, it's a grimdark take on a franchise that needs light and air beneath it to work. We are, shockingly, in “Worst Comic Movie Ever Made” territory here, and that is shocking in a world where Elektra, Green Lantern, Jonah Hex and two Ghost Rider films exist. Name recognition will probably push this to around $35 million this weekend, but it's likely a disaster scenario all around.

Being that it's now August, the undercard of the box office starts to take on a bit of a mishmash feeling. The Gift is Australian actor Joel Edgerton's directorial debut, and starring himself as a troubled man who revisits a high school classmate (Jason Bateman), seemingly still harboring a grudge for years of mistreatment in high school. These interactions start taking on more and more sinister undertones, with mysterious gifts from Edgerton's character that hint at dark past actions.

A thriller that's being marketed more as a horror movie, The Gift has gotten a surprising level of support from critics, but the genre is mostly dead of late, and the cast (which also includes Rebecca Hall as Bateman's pregnant wife) doesn't exactly scream box office success. This is a potential candidate for some legs based on word-of-mouth but I'd expect just $9 million or so this weekend.

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