Marvel and MCU fans have been clamoring for the release of the upcoming Fantastic Four movie since it was first announced. There have been a few attempts to make Marvel’s first family a powerful force in Hollywood, but while those attempts have been met with mixed reviews and a whole lot of bad luck, it might be safe to say that they were nothing like what Marvel has the potential to pull off.
These days it would be a bit of a shock to go a whole year without some kind of superhero movie or show to dig into. With that in mind, it’s worth remembering that, not so long ago, superhero content outside of comics, video games, and children’s cartoons was relatively rare. In the nineties, there was actually a Fantastic Four movie that ended up being made and mostly lost to the masses, though there are a few ways critics have managed to watch the film in its entirety.
What Is The Unreleased 1994 Fantastic Four Movie About?
| Director | Oley Sassone |
|---|---|
| Cast | Alex Hyde-White, Jay Underwood, Rebecca Staab, Michael Bailey Smith, Carl Ciarfalio |
| Runtime | 90 Minutes |
| Budget | $1 Million |
Much like many of the other Fantastic Four movies out there, the 1994 Fantastic Four movie tells a unique origin story for the group and pits them against Doctor Doom. Each of the members of the Fantastic Four and their villain are set up right away, wasting little time. Reed and Doom’s rivalry is set up during their college days after an experiment gone wrong seemingly kills Victor Von Doom, though any fan of the team would have known that Doom always finds a way to survive.
Reed, Susan, Johnny, and Ben go on a cosmic mission that leaves them exposed to powerful rays emitting from a nearby comet, eventually crash-landing back down on Earth. This is all thanks to a criminal known as The Jeweler, the secondary villain of the film, replacing a diamond portion of the ship, thus leaving the group unprotected. As one might expect, once back on Earth, the group realizes that they have the classic powers of the team. Reed is able to stretch, Johnny is able to become covered in fire, Susan can turn invisible, and Ben has become The Thing, a being entirely made of rock.
They soon find themselves captured by Doctor Doom, but the group escapes and attempts to come to terms with the new powers that the cosmic rays caused. Typical to the origin of the group, Ben feels slighted by the fact that he out of all of them has become a strange monster, causing him to go off on his own. Soon The Jeweler and Doctor Doom are at odds over the diamond that he’d stolen from the Fantastic Four’s ship, resulting in Doom claiming it for his destructive canon. The Thing tries to step in after his love interest Alicia is taken hostage, but he winds up turning back into a human and is unable to stop Doom. With the true villain, Doctor Doom, firmly in control of the diamond, he can now set his plan in motion to lay waste to the world unless a certain team rises up to stop him…
Why Didn’t The Movie Come Out?
The reason why the 1994 Fantastic Four movie never ended up seeing an actual release is simple, it was never intended to be released in the first place. While that may sound bizarre, it makes a lot more sense in context with the background of the film’s production. Essentially, Bernd Eichinger, a German movie maker, obtained the rights to make a Fantastic Four movie (and a Silver Surfer movie) back in the 1980s. As his rights on the property were about to revert, he was then forced to make a movie in order to hold onto those rights, resulting in a feature film that was never supposed to see the light of day from the very beginning.
With the average Marvel movie these days costing hundreds of millions of dollars to make, it might be a terrifying thought that the budget for the 1994 Fantastic Four movie is rumored to only have been around a million or so dollars. The low budget of the film resulted in exactly the type of cheesy and cheap look one might expect, even for the 90s, but believe it or not, none of that actually stopped the film from being marketed. Awesome trailers were played and marketing was produced, but eventually, all of that was halted altogether.
The immediate pulling of everything to do with the movie is where the rumors of it being produced purely to keep movie rights came from, something that the great Stan Lee even felt was the case. Lee was quoted as saying, via /Film:
It is not only in the works, it’s just about finished. It’ll be released sometime, I think, at the end of this year. I’m not expecting too much of it. It’s the last movie to be made that we at Marvel had no control over. Our lawyers just gave the rights to Roger Corman to do the movie. There will be no other projects like that. Everything after that we’re doing ourselves.
With a few different narratives for why the film wasn’t ever truly released, it’s hard to know what is true. What is most likely is that it was either made to hold onto film rights or it was so poorly received by executives that they were willing to eat the loss of the cost of production in order to not lessen the Fantastic Four as a brand. Sadly, the world may never truly know which narrative is the correct one. In 2016, a documentary film about the movie’s troubled production titled Doomed!: The Untold Story of Roger Corman’s The Fantastic Four attempted to shed some light on the movie’s history.
How Does The Unreleased 1994 Fantastic Four Movie End?
With the group now certain that Doctor Doom is actually Reed’s college friend Victor Von Doom who was believed to be dead, they take it upon themselves to use their new powers to put a stop to his schemes. It is Doctor Doom’s plan to use a diamond in order to power an impractically destructive weapon that is capable of completely leveling New York City. Rather than simply surrendering to Doom’s will, the group takes the fight directly to his castle. All seems lost when Doom manages to fire off his canon, though the Human Torch does his best to stop the blast from doing any damage.
Mr. Fantastic takes on Doctor Doom, eventually knocking him out of a large opening, but Doom manages to grab onto the ledge. Mr. Fantastic attempts to rescue his enemy, but Doom falls into the mist below, leaving behind nothing but one of his gauntlets that seemingly moves on its own. At the same time, the Human Torch has caught up with the end of the canon’s laser beam and redirects it away from the city, making sure that no harm comes to anyone in New York. Even The Thing gets a happy ending as Alicia is able to come to terms with his monstrous appearance.
With Doom defeated, Reed and Susan get married with their friends and family by their side. The group closes out the film with the exchange of a few happy well-wishes before Reed and Susan drive away, with one of his rubbery limbs waving through the sunroof. The Fantastic Four are now bonafide heroes, ready and capable of taking on any evil that threatens the world, just so long as that evil comes after Reed’s honeymoon.
