There’s a Fantastic Four movie that Marvel doesn’t want you to see

With a new Fantastic Four about to hit screens worldwide, it’s a good time to reflect on the quartet’s very first flick, which got shot and then shelved for reasons that remain contentious to this day.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps is a $200 million movie that’s tasked with introducing ‘Marvel’s First Family,’ making them part of the MCU, and paving the way for The Avengers‘ return in Doomsday and then Secret Wars.

It isn’t the first time the superheroes have been seen onscreen, as there were fun Fantastic Four flicks in 2005 and 2007, while an entirely joyless affair arrived in 2015, and promptly failed with critics and audiences alike.

But their maiden movie was made in the early 1990s, for just $1 million, and never saw the light of day, for complicated reasons that are anything but heroic.

Stan Lee lays it out

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The story behind The Fantastic Four’s first movie is stranger than anything found in the pages of a Marvel comic. But in a 2005 Los Angeles Times article by Robert Ito titled The Fantastic Faux, F4 co-creator Stan Lee gives an overview of what happened:

“That movie was never supposed to be shown to anybody. This fellow had the rights to do the Fantastic Four movie for like 15 years and finally the option was due to lapse. If he hadn’t begun principal photography by December he would lose that option. And he still wanted to make that movie. So he figured he would bat out a fast movie for a dollar-ninety-eight budget just so he could keep that option.

“The tragic thing is that the people involved with the film were not aware that the movie was never supposed to be show to anybody. Do you see? It was never supposed to be seen by any living human beings.”

That’s just Lee’s version of what happened, however, and everyone involved seems to tell a different tale about what went on behind the scenes. What we do know, however, is that it started with a man called Bernd Eichinger.

Securing The Fantastic Four rights

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Eichinger was CEO of German company Constantin, who had a hit in the mid-1980s with The NeverEnding Story. Around that time, he wanted to get into the superhero business, so he approached Stan Lee about purchasing the rights to The Fantastic Four.

That didn’t work out, but in 1986, he went directly to Marvel, and with the company in dire financial straits, the First Family was bagged for just $250k.

He then shopped the characters around town, but every studio turned the prospect down, over fears that interest in superheroes was limited, and because bringing four comic book characters to life onscreen would be prohibitively expensive.

In December 1992, the option was running down, so Bernd approached Marvel about an extension. “They didn’t want to prolong it because they hated the deal,” Eichinger said in 2005. “They had realized by then that they could sell Marvel property for much more.”

But he adds: “They didn’t say I had to make a big movie.”

F4 becomes a Roger Corman movie

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Roger Corman called Fantastic Four “the strangest film production I’ve ever been involved with in my life,” and coming from the man who made The Trip, Carnosaur, and Slumber Party Massacre III, that’s quite a statement.

But Corman was known for making movies fast on a shoestring budget, so Eichinger asked in late 1992 if he could get cameras rolling on a $1 million Fantastic Four by the end of the year. Corman told the LA Times: “He explained his option was due to expire unless we started principal photography on December 31.”

Corman crunched the numbers, said yes, and casting commenced on December 1. Future Hulk Mark Ruffalo read for the role of Ben Grimm, but lost out to Michael Bailey Smith, while Alex Hyde-White landed the part of Reed Richards, Rebecca Staab became Sue Storm, and Jay Underwood was Johnny Storm.

With Bloodfist 3 director Oley Sassone directing from a Craig J Nevius script, principal photography started on December 28, 1992, on a rotting soundstage in Venice, California.

The Fantastic Four shot for 21 days, and while money ran out during an extensive post-production period, the film was completed by the end of 1993.

Marvel pulls the plug

Speaking of its box office prospects in Fantastic Four documentary ‘Doomed!’ Corman says: “I do think we had a very good chance.”

The cast felt the same, hiring a publicist and embarking on a grass-roots tour to publicise the movie, with Hyde-White saying, “At this point in my career, it looked, felt, and smelt like a break.”

Though while producer and actors were optimistic, Stan Lee started bad-mouthing the movie, saying at a 1993 Comic-Con: “I’m not expecting  too much of it – it’s the last movie to be made that we don’t have control of.”

The premiere was nevertheless set for January 19, 1994, at the Mall of America in Minneapolis. The movie made the cover of Film Threat magazine, and there was talk of releasing on 500 screens.

Then all of a sudden, the plug was pulled, the premiere cancelled, and the cast sent “cease and desist” messages regarding all mention and promotion of Fantastic Four.

Avi Arad sets fire to the Fantastic Four

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Which is around the time Avi Arad enters the story. A toy manufacturer who had segued into movies, he became an executive at Marvel in 1993, and saw a cheap Fantastic Four flick as a stumbling block to launching big-budget superhero blockbusters.

So he phoned Bernd Eichinger and said, “Let’s make a deal.” Roger Corman also reportedly received a similarly lucrative call. And while Arad hasn’t spoken about the nature of those conversations or the exact details of those deals, he did address the F4 issue during a Spider-Man junket, saying: “I bought the film for a couple of million dollars in cash and burned it.”

Which begs the question, was that Bernd Eichinger’s plan all along? Turns out he’d previously been in talks with director Chris Columbus over a much more ambitious Fantastic Four flick, and the pair ended up with credits on the 2005 movie, so was the 1990s adaptation simply made to retain the rights and force Marvel’s hand?

Those involved deny anything that nefarious was at play, but whatever the case, the cast and crew had no idea that the Fantastic Four would be buried. Or worse still burned.

Fantastic Four reborn

But one print of the movie avoided that fate, and was soon being pirated on video, and sold at comic conventions in vast numbers. Meaning The Fantastic Four found life after death.

So while Marvel has ignored the movie’s existence for more than 30 years, fans have been watching and sharing bootleg copies of varying quality ever since, laughing at some of the cruder special effects, but appreciating the efforts of all involved, while now knowing they were doomed from the start.

Which pleases and frustrates Oley Sassone in equal measure, with the director having strong words for Marvel: “I wish these people would at least have the f**king decency to say, ‘Look let’s at least give this guy a decent copy of his work.’ Then the guy who made the movie, and all the people who made this film, could at least say ‘Hey, look at this movie’ and they could show it to their family and their friends.”

Until that day, the very first Fantastic Four film remains sadly and resolutely unavailable… unless you know where to look.

For more F4 action, find out why Fantastic Four takes place on Earth-828, and where to get the Fantastic popcorn buckets, at alternatively check out our breakdown of every upcoming MCU project, and list of best superhero movies ever.