Roger Corman’s ‘Fantastic Four’ Movie Climax
Science-fiction fan site io9 has posted a video clip in their "Found Footage" section featuring the climax of 1994’s live-action "Fantastic Four" film, which Roger Corman produced and Marvel Comics spent heaps of money to hide from the public.
Okay, I’ve never seen the full film, but I’m quite certain its depiction of Ben Grimm, The Thing, will live on in my nightmares. Oh, and check out the animation used in the "Johnny Storm flying off to stop the Destructo Ray" sequence – it’s wonderfully cheesy.
io9 has more on the background of the film’s production, as well as some of its more questionable plot choices (an angry space leprechaun, anyone?):
How did this disaster happen? A German production company owned the rights to make a Fantastic Four movie, but was unable to raise the $40 million it needed before the rights were due to expire. So the company turned to Roger Corman, who said he could make the movie cheap and quick. … At $1.4 million, this movie had a huge budget compared to a usual Corman spectacle. After the film was completed, Marvel paid a few million to suppress it. The team worked in secret to complete post-production on it, but then Marvel ordered all prints destroyed. So it’s a minor miracle that you’re able to suffer through this clip.
I saw the whole thing once back in the day. Might have been a rough cut. Cheezy as hell but it was good fun at the time.
Yeah, I saw it as well. It really wasn't bad — I mean, it had an eight dollar budget, but at least every penny of it was on the screen. I've seen worse superhero movies and teevee shows. The Justice League pilot with Major Winchester playing the Martian Manhunter was AMAZINGLY rotten. I'd seen worse Marvel superhero movies… such as, anything with Captain America in it. Dating back to the serial of the 1940s, one of the worst serials ever made.And I thought the two Marvel FF movies were okay; probably about as good as one could expect and still be at all faithful to the concept and the underlying themes. Except we didn't need Doctor Doom in the second one… and we could have used Galactus.
Wow, and people thought the two recent FF films were bad!This sets the benchmark.
I've gotta go along with Mike–it was bad, but there are plenty worse. I remember interviewing the guy who played Reed Richards around the time the film was supposed to be released (late 1993, as I recall, before Marvel jumped all over it)–a very nice guy who was trying to build his career on this. Didn't work. But somehow, I suspect Roger Corman made more money from it than if it had been a somewhat better film and actually been released theatrically>..
I was a film student at UCLA when this flick was shot. I had my student film developed at the same lab (Fotokem) as this movie. I had become friends with the projectionist who screened dailies and prints. I got to go into the booth and see what was being shown in the other screening rooms. One was showing FANTASTIC FOUR. So I got to see it on the big screen. I do feel bad for the creative people involved, they tried their hardest under the circumstances to make it work, but in the end, it was better that it never saw the light of day.