At this point, practically the entire world knows how terrible Josh Trank’s ‘Fantastic Four’ turned out. In fact, we even know how much better it would have been if the studio had just dished out the necessary budget to create Jeremy Slater’s original script for the film rather than watering it down an insane amount to save money. But new information just keeps coming out about the latest cinematic incarnation of Marvel’s First Family. For example, the latest leak tells us of a small change that would have slightly remedied one of the movie’s biggest problems.
A frequent criticism towards 20th Century Fox’s latest attempt to revive the franchise starring Mr. Fantastic, the Human Torch, the Invisible Woman, and the Thing is that the movie lacked an adequate amount of action. However, there was originally meant to be a major fight scene after the time jump following the group’s first trip to Planet Zero. According to Entertainment Weekly, we were supposed to pick up with Jamie Bell’s Ben Grimm one year later as he dropped from an airplane to fight insurgents for the American government. We caught small glimpses of this mission in the final cut, but originally the entire mission was meant to appear onscreen.
In this sequence, The Thing drops down into a Chechen rebel camp from a stealth bomber in the middle of the night. When the alarm sounds and the rebels open fire with some heavy duty weaponry, Grimm decimates his opposition “slowly and deliberately” until Navy SEALS come in to finish the job. As The Thing boards a helicopter, it cuts to Tim Blake Nelson’s Dr. Allen talking to various military types in a conference room about this mutated team of scientists. You can catch a glimpse of this scene in this trailer around 2:09:
Why was this sequence ultimately left out of the theatrical cut of ‘Fantastic Four’? Well, EW shares that there are multiple accounts. Some say that Trank was indecisive about whether or not the scene was absolutely necessary, which would contribute to the argument that the director didn’t know what to do with the project. Other sources say that the studio pulled back on the planned budget, so the scene had to be omitted. Although once they realized that the movie was lacking in action, they agreed to finance it with the condition that Trank wouldn’t participate in the filming. This resulted in the scene being shot in a hand-held style that didn’t match the rest of the movie and the scene being cut.
No matter how it actually went down, the elimination of this fight featuring the Thing offers yet another look at how no one involved in this movie can really escape the blame for how bad ‘Fantastic Four’ turned out. But then again, keeping one deleted scene in the film probably wouldn’t have made a difference in amidst the sea of other failures.
What do you think of this deleted scene from ‘Fantastic Four’? Do you think that keeping this in the movie would have made a difference? Let us know in the comments below.
