In 1994, B-movie filmmaker Roger Corman created a low-budget film based on Marvel’s strangely powered first family, the Fantastic Four. Yes, it was never released, not officially, but I’m betting quite a few of you have seen this very…uh…”unique” product of tragic filmmaking; I’m raising my hand not because I’m pointing to a bombarding Skrull warship, but because I actually watched Roger Corman’s unreleased Fantastic Four movie. Yep, I’m one of you.
Because we’re such good friends, you and I, I’m going to remind you what we suffered through together with the original trailer. And…ouch.
So, you watched it (the FULL movie), and you laughed and cried, maybe both intermittently, or perhaps simultaneously, as you pondered the ludicrous costumes, the laughable special effects and the catastrophic over-acting. You were dared to watch it, you did, you survived, and went about your business. Well, the particularly strange history and creation of this very film won’t be denied its overwhelming desire to explain itself: get ready for DOOMED, the documentary detailing the making of this very, dare I say it, “doomed” film project.
Directed by Oley Sassone, this film makes one salient point abundantly clear: Roger Corman was tasked to construct this movie, in due haste, before the rights for these particular characters reverted back to Marvel. The film was never actually meant to be released, a fact kept from a majority of the cast and crew. Ugh. Poor cast. Poor crew. POOR US!
So, when can we expect the documentary that probably cost more than the subject of its documenting?? The film will arrive on VOD and other digital services on October 11, 2016 before hitting DVD on December 20, 2016.
Produced by Uncork’d Entertainment, president Keith Leopard described the film thusly:
“The average moviegoer doesn’t know that, ten years before releasing Tim Story’s version, Roger Corman was asked to produce a Fantastic Four movie. Unbeknownst to cast and crew, the film was never going to be released though – and for a variety of reasons. Doomed! is such a compelling documentary – and not just for comic book movies but anyone intrigued by the ins and outs of Hollywood and business. In short, it’s a Fantastic movie.”
So, what do you think? Would you have preferred this to the 2015 version that did the same amount of damage to the franchise at, like, 700 times the cost??
