The Fantastic Four and Their Not-So-Fantastic Movies

by Nicholas Lemieux

Ah yes, the Fantastic Four, Marvel’s first-ever comic book superheroes. Before Spider-Man, the X-Men and even the Avengers, the Fantastic Four were Marvel’s first proper entry into the superhero franchise, and yet today, now that these comic books are entering the cinematic age, are commonly looked down upon and overshadowed by their sibling properties. In light of Disney’s recent acquisition of 21st Century Fox and most of its assets, including the rights of the Fantastic Four, this article will examine the tumultuous and haphazard film history of the Fantastic Four and whether or not there is a bright spot for the franchise in the future.

Strangely enough, the first Fantastic Four film ever produced was never even released in the form of 1994’s low-budget The Fantastic Four. In 1992, the Four’s film rights were held by the Constantin Film production franchise, but they were about to lose said rights unless they began production by December of that year. Due to the limited time needed to properly kickstart the film and since both the budget and the technology necessary for such a venture were lacking at the time, they instead opted to do a very low-budget $1 million film produced by Roger Corman filled with cheap effects, corny writing and campy acting. Although the film was never released, due to fears from Marvel that it would cheapen the franchise’s monetary value, bootleg copies soon began to circulate over the next few years and the film promptly became a mild Cult hit, well-known as a “so bad it’s good” movie a la The Room. Today the film is little known, asides from being a running gag on Arrested Development Season 4 when Tobias meets a drug addict who played Invisible Woman in that film. Ironically enough, one could argue that this film, in all its corniness, was perhaps the closest in all the films in recapturing the heart and charm of the original comic book, even if you ignore the terrible CGI.

In 2004, the rights to the Four were brought by Fox who instantly green lit a reboot. A short-lived film series promptly sprung up in the mid 2000’s in the form of 2005’s Fantastic Four and its 2007 sequel Rise of the Silver Surfer.  With a much bigger budget and a cast with great potential, including future Captain America himself Chris Evans as Human Torch, the films had great potential and yet were more or less a disappointment. The films made an adequate earning at the box office but received mainly negative reviews particularly for its lack of charm and heart and overall unlikeable main characters, who for a majority of the first film show no interest in using their powers for good. Its sequel is also notorious for featuring Galactus, probably one of the most powerful and threatening villains in the entire Marvel universe, as a stormy cloud. Very threatening indeed.

Shortly afterwards, Fox started development on a reboot of the franchise directed by up-and-coming filmmaker Josh Trank, who had prior directed the hit Sc-Fi movie Chronicle, who had a vision of forming a more darker and grittier tone for the franchise.  Fantastic Four 2015 or Fant4stic as it was so cleverly stylized went through an...intriguing production to say the least. Namely, reports from the set indicates that Trank had  poor relations with the cast and crew, reportedly prone to erratic and isolated behaviour, constantly arguing with the crew, abusing the production budget (Fox gave the film a budget of $120 million when Trank thought he was given $150 million to work with, leading to several action scenes being cut) and apparently causing extensive damage to the rental home he stayed in during production. Midway through production, reshoots were ordered by Fox who apparently weren’t satisfied with the final product of the film, resulting in Trank’s script becoming excessively rewritten and also resulting in his removal from the editing of the final cut. Reportedly, reshoots lasted until May 2015, three whole months before the final product was to be released. 

The night before the film’s premiere, Trank posted a message on Twitter that he quickly deleted, writing “A year ago, I had a fantastic version of this. And it would've received great reviews. You'll probably never see it. That's reality though." Suffice to say, when Fant4stic was released, it was a major critical and commercial failure, grossing only $168 million on its already extended $150 million budget and receiving universal negative reviews from audiences and critics alike, gaining only 9% on Rotten Tomatoes and winning three awards at the Golden Raspberry Awards. A planned sequel to this reboot was promptly cancelled and once again the Fantastic Four’s film franchise fell into a state of Limbo.

However, all that changed in December of last year, following Disney’s acquisition of a large position of Fox’s entertainment assets. Among the specifics of the deal was that the film rights of the Fantastic Four, as well as those of fellow Marvel superhero team the X-Men, would revert back to Marvel. As of now, whilst there are currently plans to incorporate both brands into Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe, it’ll be quite some time before we see another Fantastic Four film hit cinemas, especially considering how tainted their brand is currently.  We’ll get a good Fantastic Four film one day, one not too campy, mean-spirited or overly serious, but just simple yet charming. Disney and Sony’s deal with Spider-Man after the failure of The Amazing Spider-Man series had a big payoff with the financially and critically successful Spider-Man: Homecoming so it’s definitely not too far-fetched to imagine something similar will happen to the Four.

We’ll get a good Fantastic Four film one day, and when it comes out it’ll be...Fant4stic.