Fantastic Four Screenwriter on the FF Movie That Could Have Been
2015’s Fantastic Four film was….painful. If you watched it without retching, or decrying FOX studios for punching you right in your usually swelling, comic book loving soul, you’re kind of/sort of living in a minority. And yes, you can tell I’m allowing my personal feelings to color this particular article which, as any respectable journalist knows, is poor, poor reporting (but usually more entertaining…for the both of us). Anyway, and apparently, before Simon Kinberg and Josh Trank rewrote the screenplay and granted us, well, you know (ugh)…Jeremy Slater was hired by 20th Century Fox to pen the initial screenplay and chart the exciting new direction of Marvel’s First Family. In a recent interview with our friends at ScreenCrush, the very first Fantastic Four screenwriter revealed that very little, if anything, made it into the final version of FOX’s THIRD FF attempt.
Slater revealed that his screenplay touched more on the Baxter Foundation and the relationship between Reed and Victor. He also mentioned that the team encountered Annihilus after a trek to the Negative Zone, resulting in a cascade of radiation granting them their legendary powers.
Apparently, Victor would be left behind, and attempt to kill Annihilus in an effort to use his cosmic control rod to create “a sort of living body armor.”
Yes, this sounds intriguing, but it gets better. Much, much better.
“In addition to Annihilus and the Negative Zone, we had Doctor Doom declaring war against the civilized world, the Mole Man unleashing a 60 foot genetically-engineered monster in downtown Manhattan, a commando raid on the Baxter Foundation, a Saving Private Ryan-style finale pitting our heroes against an army of Doombots in war-torn Latveria, and a post-credit teaser featuring Galactus and the Silver Surfer destroying an entire planet. We had monsters and aliens and Fantasticars and a cute spherical H.E.R.B.I.E. robot that was basically BB-8 two years before BB-8 ever existed. And if you think all of that sounds great…well, yeah, we did, too. The problem was, it would have also been massively, MASSIVELY expensive.”
Holy CRAP! Now THAT sounds like a Fantastic Four movie! Army of Doombots? A commando raid on the Baxter Building? GALACTUS AND THE SILVER SURFER??? We need to crowd fund this movie and contribute to the studio, because yes, it sounds expensive. WHO’S WITH ME??