10 Things You Need To Know About The Fantastic Four
5. The Roger Corman Movie
In recent times, we've seen two cracks at bringing the Fantastic Four to live-action life. First up, there was the pair of Tim Story-directed movies of the 2000s, and then more recently 2015 gave us Josh Trank's utterly disappointing FF offering.
What many will not be aware of, however, is the Fantastic Four movie put together by cult favourite filmmaker Roger Corman.
The tale of the 1994 movie - simply titled The Fantastic Four - is a fascinating one. Technically, the film has never been officially released, although it's legend is well known amongst aficionados of film history.
After producer Bernd Eichinger and his Constantin Film banner picked up the rights for the Fantastic Four in 1986, budgeting concerns delayed any such FF movie from happening. With his option on these characters due to expire on December 31, 1992, Eichinger opted to rush through a low budget Fantastic Four picture in order for him to retain his option on the property. And thus, B-movie director Roger Corman was tasked with bringing this film to life.
Shot over a spell of just 25 days and largely filmed on a California sound stage, the film was due to receive its premiere in January '94. Then, that premiere was cancelled, all of the actors were handed a cease and desist order on all PR from the producers of the film, and the negatives of the movie were seized by the studio.
Soon after that, it became apparent that Marvel executive Avi Arad had purchased the film for several million dollars and ordered all negatives to be destroyed. His logic was that releasing a low-budget Fantastic Four film might damage the future of the FF name. Eichinger and Constantin Film still retained the movie rights to the Fantastic Four, and that would eventually lead to 2005's Fantastic Four and its Rise fo the Silver Surfer follow-up.
Detailing all of this, the brilliant Doomed!: The Untold Story of Roger Corman's The Fantastic Four documentary was released in 2015.