Though the studio has filled Disney Plus with countless titles they inherited from Fox, none of Fox’s Marvel movies have been added to the streaming service to date. That changes today, though, as the Mouse House has quietly slipped a Fox-Marvel effort onto D+. The fact that this movie arrived without any big announcement though, even though it marks a first for the site, makes sense when you consider that the film in question is 2015’s Fantastic Four, one of the worst superhero flicks ever made.
In Canada and other markets around the world, Disney Plus does feature a bunch of Fox’s live-action X-Men movies, but this is not something that’s currently able to occur in the US due to pre-existing streaming deals with other services still being in effect. Clearly that’s not the case with Fantastic Four though, as Disney’s now decided to throw it up on D+ without any fanfare, and understandably so.
Taking the franchise of Marvel’s First Family in a darker direction after the two lighter-hearted Tim Story movies of the mid-2000s seemed like a smart idea back in the day, as did hiring Josh Trank, fresh off his popular found-footage superhero film Chronicle. Somewhere along the way, though, Fox lost faith in Trank’s vision and the final result that you can now view on D+ is a reshot mess that falls far short of either being the Cronenberg-eseque body-horror flick Trank wanted or the crowd-pleaser the studio were after.
The good news is that Marvel are definitely working on a new cinematic outing for Mr. Fantastic and co. that will take place in the MCU. It doesn’t seem to be a top priority for the House of Ideas right now, but hopefully they’ll be able to reinvent the comic book quartet in such a way that makes us forget all about Fox’s failed past attempts. For now, however, if you feel like a bit of self-torture, you can find 2015’s Fantastic Four on Disney Plus.