No movie franchise has repeatedly crashed and burned quite like Marvel’s Fantastic Four.
Over the past 30 or so years, four movies have been made starring the iconic superhero team, with a fifth dropping on July 24.
The first of these five films, depending on who you ask, was so bad it wasn’t even released.
The rebooted second film was mildly successful, but its follow-up less so, effectively ending the series in a blaze of less-than-satisfactory reviews.
A fourth film — yet another reboot — shared the Razzie Award for worst film of 2015 with 50 Shades of Grey.
Wikipedia puts it bluntly:
“None of the Fantastic Four films received a positive critical reception.”
And yet here we are, on the eve of a fourth reboot and fifth Fantastic Four film.
So why is Marvel so keen to see these comic book heroes succeed on the big screen, and why has it failed so often in the past?
Saving the Marvel universe
Before Iron Man, the Hulk, and Spider-Man, there was the Fantastic Four.
A “family” of sorts, given superpowers by cosmic space rays, the comic book heroes were created by Stan Lee and Jim Kirby and launched in 1961.
An image from the cover of an early Fantastic Four comic. (Supplied: Marvel)
Unlike other superheroes, this team was flawed. They bickered and argued, and seemed more like regular people, albeit with remarkable powers.
The Fantastic Four comic was a great success from the start, saving a then-struggling Marvel and helping usher in the so-called Silver Age of Comics.
In the ’80s, the team helped save Marvel a second time when the rights to a Fantastic Four movie were among those sold off to give the comic company a financial boost.
This landed the superheroes’ cinematic future in the hands of German producer Bernd Eichinger, who paid a rumoured US$250,000 in 1986 for the privilege.
The actual first steps
Eichinger had enjoyed success producing films such as The Neverending Story and The Name Of The Rose, and would spend his later career producing a mix of high-brow literary adaptations (The Baader Meinhof Complex, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, Smilla’s Sense of Snow) and schlocky video game adaptations (DOA: Dead or Alive, the Resident Evil series).
The German producer spent years shopping around the idea of a Fantastic Four film, but couldn’t get the financial backing to get it off the ground.
Eichinger had until December 31, 1992 to use the rights or lose them, so he hatched a plan in September that year.
He approached legendary B-grade moviemaker Roger Corman to put together a cheap version of a Fantastic Four movie.
Corman and director Oley Sassone did just that for the princely sum of $1 million. For comparison, 1992’s Batman Returns cost $80 million to make.
The cast from 1994’s unreleased Fantastic Four film. (Supplied: Constantin Films)
The film was promoted in magazines, trailers were screened and a premiere date was set.
But then it mysteriously disappeared, never making it to multiplexes around the world.
According to some, Eichinger never intended to release the film — he only had to make the movie and not release it to retain the rights, and releasing such a low-budget product would potentially sully the Fantastic Four name for future movies.
According to others, Marvel executive Avi Arad got wind of the low-budget product, feared it would sully the Fantastic Four name for future movies, and so bought up the prints of the film and destroyed them.
Bootlegs of the film exist — it’s as cheap-looking and telemovie-quality as you’d expect, but it has a certain B-grade charm to it. Alex Hyde-White’s performance as Mr Fantastic is surprisingly good, and the costume for The Thing is impressive, but it’s far from fantastic.
The unreleased film of the Fantastic Four has entered into legend as a Hollywood anomaly, sparking a documentary in 2015, endless Comic-Con questions, and even becoming a plot arc in season four of Arrested Development.
Flame on!
Having retained the rights, Eichinger moved on quickly, continuing to shop around the idea of a big-budget Fantastic Four movie to directors such as Chris Columbus (Home Alone), Peyton Reed (Bring It On), and Peter Segal (50 First Dates).
In 2005, Eichinger finally got his wish, with director Tim Story helming a $100 million FF film for 20th Century Fox starring Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Chris Evans, Michael Chiklis, and the late Julian McMahon as Doctor Doom.
The cast of the 2005 Fantastic Four film, which was a minor box-office success, but poorly regarded by critics. (Supplied: 20th Century Fox)
The film made $333 million at the worldwide box office and was the 11th biggest film of the year, despite garnering largely negative reviews — as critic aggregator Rotten Tomatoes’ summation puts it, the movie is “marred by goofy attempts at wit, sub-par acting, and bland storytelling”.
A sequel followed in 2007, costing more money while making less, and attracted the same level of reviews.
Rolling Stone’s critic Peter Travers described it as being “not egregiously awful like the first film — just plain awful in that formula way that kills your spirit and all hope for summer movies”.
Despite the cast all being on three-film deals, a second sequel was ditched, and the comic book family went back on the shelf.
But not for long.
It’s clobberin’ time
By 2009, 20th Century Fox was eyeing another reboot, after 2008’s The Dark Knight and Iron Man helped usher in a new era of superhero movies that boasted A-list stars, strong themes and a more serious approach.
But 2015’s Fantastic Four, directed by Josh Trank, was an absolute disaster.
2015’s Fantastic Four was a box-office bomb and is the lowest-rated Marvel film on Rotten Tomatoes. (Supplied: 20th Century Fox)
Trank feuded with Fox, with the studio forcing a re-edit and re-shoots, eventually taking the project out of Trank’s hands amid accusations of “erratic behaviour” on set.
The film bombed hard, ending up costing Fox somewhere between $80 million and $100 million, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
Critics savaged it. Vox critic Alex Abad-Santos called it “a new depth of terribleness” that “absolutely murdered what was left of the franchise”.
“Fox’s 2015 Fantastic Four reboot is the greatest superhero movie disaster ever foisted on fans, suffering from weird wigs, bad action, and a script that feels like it was constructed by a kindergartener,” wrote Abad-Santos.
“It’s also the biggest argument for letting Marvel take control of the Fantastic Four on screen.”
Naturally, 20th Century Fox began working on another reboot.
Marvel’s turn
In 2019, Disney purchased 20th Century Fox.
Having already bought Marvel in 2009, Disney’s Fox deal meant the Fantastic Four could finally be incorporated into the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).
Along with the Avengers and the X-Men (who also returned to the Marvel fold as part of the Fox deal), the Fantastic Four represented one of Marvel Comics’ most beloved and best-known superhero teams.
Marvel began working on a Fantastic Four film right away, even slipping a cameo of Mr Fantastic into 2022’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
The Thing (voiced by Ebon Moss-Bachrach) and Joseph Quinn in a scene from The Fantastic Four: First Steps. (Supplied: Disney)
The imminent launch of The Fantastic Four: First Steps is just the beginning of Marvel’s plan for its blue-and-white clad heroes — the title hints at further “steps” and, unsurprisingly, a sequel is already in development.
But more importantly, the cast is also appearing in 2026’s Avengers: Doomsday, which will feature their archenemy Dr Doom as the film’s Big Bad, and are likely to be in the sequel Avengers: Secret Wars.
Marvel is no doubt excited to have the iconic characters that helped build a comic book empire back in its cinematic stable.
As MCU overlord Kevin Feige told Comic-Con in 2019, he aimed to bring “Marvel’s first family up to the sort of platform and level they deserve”; that is, to release a film that doesn’t get canned by the critics like the four previous films did.
The question of whether First Steps can do that will be answered in the coming weeks.
