10 Movies That Abandoned Awesome Ideas Halfway Through

Before the release of 2015's Fantastic Four reboot, director Josh Trank stated that it was heavily influenced by the works of body horror maestro David Cronenberg. Within the confines of a PG-13 content rating, he wanted to focus on how existentially terrifying it'd be to gain superhuman abilities.

While his movie was famously chopped to pieces by the studio before release, there's some still lingering sense of his original vision in the final film, especially when the heroes awaken from their catastrophic accident and first discover their abilities.

Trank shoots the discovery not as triumphant - like in the earlier Fox movies - but as genuinely horrific. In particular, he focuses on the scared confusion felt by Reed (Miles Teller), Johnny (Michael B. Jordan), and Ben (Jamie Bell) as they struggle to control their respective powers.

The fear is palpable, and seems like a unique angle from which to tackle the superhero origin story - especially in the big-budget arena.

But after a few scenes, this is quickly dropped - once the movie throws up a "one year later" title card, we shift to the heroes now very much comfortable and acquainted with their powers.

At this point, Fantastic Four becomes an infinitely less interesting movie, skipping over what could've been a compelling, character-driven piece about a group of young people coming to terms with their physiologies being irreparably changed.