Fantastic Four, stylized as Fant4stic, was a disaster for 20th Century Fox, which hit a new low for the IP after Rise of the Silver Surfer underperformed back in 2007. While the movie starred Miles Teller, who was hot off the success of Whiplash, and a young director, whose career was off to a great start, things couldn’t have gone more wrong for the 2015 film.
And although a plethora of problems are there to list to explain Fant4stic‘s horrendous performance, whose embargo wasn’t lifted until the first showing, Stan Lee gave two reasons for its failure.
Not Having Stan Lee on Board Added to Fant4stic’s Failure
From on-set disputes between the actors and director Josh Trank to Trank feuding with Fox, leading to Fox and him developing their own cuts of the movie, things were less than stellar throughout production. And worse of all, the movie didn’t even feature a cameo from the iconic Stan Lee, which was reasonably a shock to every Marvel fan. Stan Lee later expressed his viewpoint of the Fantastic Four being a dud, joking that not having him film a cameo and not consulting him for the story was probably added to its failure. He told Larry King (via US Today),
“Well, it was probably because I didn’t have a cameo in it, and they didn’t discuss the story with me.”
Despite being the foundational blocks for Marvel’s success that pave the way for heroes like Spider-Man, the creation of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby are still yet to hit their potential on the big screen.
The Upcoming Fantastic Four Will Take Inspiration From Stan Lee’s Works
While Fant4stic was the worst of all the Fantastic Four entries that came before. It never really attained any major critical acclaim, not even close to the 2005 box-office hit starring Chris Evans. But with the iconic superhero faction set to make their debut in the MCU, fans will hope their struggling run on the silver screen finally ends. Matt Shakman, who is set to helm the upcoming movie, stressed that instead of looking at the movies, they are going back to the roots and taking inspiration from comics.
He told Inverse:
“I’m not so much looking at the other movies. I’m looking at the comics themselves. I’m a huge comic book fan. I’ve been a big fan of the Fantastic Four since I was a kid. So going back to Kirby and Lee and Byrne and following all the way up to what’s happening, certainly Hickman and Waid and Ryan North, what he’s been doing. I’m trying to figure out who these characters are to me and how to bring them to life in the best possible way, and that’s really where I’ve started and how we’ve approached it.”
Fans will hope Shakman’s upcoming take on the iconic IP finally ends the Fantastic Four‘s drought on the big screen and live up to the late Stan Lee’s fantastic works.
Fantastic Four is slated for a release on 2 May 2025.
