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Here's the unreleased 'Fantastic Four' movie that was apparently so bad Marvel never wanted it to see the light of day

Kirsten Acuna   

Here's the unreleased 'Fantastic Four' movie that was apparently so bad Marvel never wanted it to see the light of day
Latest3 min read

kate mara miles teller fantastic four

Alan Markfield/20th Century Fox

The latest adaptation of the "Fantastic Four" comic series debuted to a low $26.2 million at the box office.

While most people remember the "Fantastic Four" movies of 2005 and 2007, we nearly had another film about Marvel's first family back in 1994.

According to an interview with former president of Marvel Comics Stan Lee in 2005's Los Angeles Magazine, the low-budget movie "was never supposed to be shown to anybody." Instead, Lee claims the 1994 film was made as a way for producer Bernd Eichinger to retain rights to the characters he purchased in the late '80s for a reported $250,000.

Producer Roger Corman, known for making low-budget B-movies his ability to turn around a movie quickly, was brought on to help make the film in record time but the film never received a release date.

Apparently, the movie was so embarrassing that then-Marvel executive Avi Arad purchased the rights to the film and had every print he could find destroyed.

The Hollywood Reporter has a brief read on it.

So what was this movie about? Though the movie was never officially released, the film did find its way online over the years with its trailer surfacing on YouTube. With the release of the new "Fantastic Four" film, the old trailer has recently been trending on Reddit.

Made on a low-budget, the film starred mostly unknowns.

Alex Hyde-White played Reed Richards, aka Mr. Fantastic.

Former Miss Nebraska Rebecca Staab was Susan Storm, the Invisible Woman.

Jay Underwood played Johnny Storm, the Human Torch and former defensive tackle for the Dallas Cowboys Michael Bailey Smith played The Thing.

Here's Fantastic Four nemesis: Doctor Doom. It looks like he had Wolverine-like claws.

Here's how Doom looks in the new film:

The Los Angeles magazine described the film as such:

College student Reed Richards is working with pal Victor Von Doom on a machine that will harness the power of Colossus, an enormous energy field from outer space. The attempt fails, and Von Doom's face is horribly scarred when the machine explodes in a fury of sparks and smoke. Ten years later, Richards convinces three others to travel with him into space: Ben Grimm, the excitable Johnny Storm, and Johnny's sister, Susan, who had a crush on Richards when she was around 13 and is now, much to Richard's surprise, all grow up and really hot. Von Doom, who has since become the evil Dr. Doom, plots to sabotage their spacecraft. Cosmic rays flood the ship, giving the astronauts different superpowers. The Fantastic Four battle Doom, who is planning to-what else?-rule the world.

It looks ridiculously goofy.

Here's how the film worked around showing Mr. Fantastic's stretchable arms.
 


Still, the film looked more action-packed than Fox's reboot of the foursome.

Watch the full trailer below.

 

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