10 Movie Characters That Mean More Than You Think

7. Dr. Harvey Allen - Fantastic Four

Watching Josh Trank's 2015 Fantastic Four reboot, you'd be forgiven for wondering why Trank cast an actor as brilliant as Tim Blake Nelson to play a character as forgettable and perfunctory as government scientist Dr. Harvey Allen.

But the truth is that, like so many aspects of the final movie, the original vision was very different indeed.

Nelson actually signed on to play Dr. Harvey Elder, the comic book alter-ego of the villainous super-genius Mole Man, before the surname was changed in re-shoots.

This wasn't merely intended to be an Easter egg for comic book fans to grin at, though: Trank's original script had Elder becoming contaminated by the alien creatures known as Moloids, which would transform him into Mole Man and lead to him battling the Fantastic Four.

Instead, the re-worked version of the character in the final cut just gets to spout exposition, denying Nelson even the chance for some prime scenery-chewing.

And due to the name change, there wasn't the prospect of Nelson playing Mole Man in a sequel had the first film been successful.

This wasn't even the first time Nelson's had been denied the chance to play a classic supervillain, sadly: in 2008's The Incredible Hulk, his Samuel Sterns was transformed into his supervillain moniker The Leader, yet the character hasn't been seen in the decade-plus since. Boo.