Josh Trank’s Fantastic Four reboot will go down as one of the biggest comic book movie flops, both critically and commercially, of all time. In the wake of the dire response to the movie there were a lot of rumors relating to where things went wrong, most specifically. Trank seemed to blame Fox, the studio blamed Trank, and most of the cast remained as diplomatic as possible.
But now, while promoting Warcraft: The Beginning, British actor Toby Kebbell has decided to shed a bit more light on what exactly went down. When quizzed about the movie’s reactions, the Dead Man Shoes actor certainly seems to come down on Trank’s side of things, maintaining that the young director really did have a much better cut of Fantastic Four under his belt at one point, presumably before studio interference.
“I tell you, the honest truth is [Trank] did cut a great film that you’ll never see. That is a shame. A much darker version, and you’ll never see it.”
“I spent so long figuring out an accent that was from the mid-Eastern block, generic enough to be a guy who then lived in America. I figured that out. Unfortunately, I played Doom in three points: Walking down a corridor, killing the doctor and getting into the time machine, and lying on the bench. They were the only times I played Doom. Everything else was some other guy, on some other day… doing some other thing. I was infuriated that he was allowed to limp like that!”
Sounds like the director wasn’t just blowing hot air and he really was forced to make some significant alterations. It really is a shame, because myself and many others felt Trank’s reboot did have quite a few redeeming qualities – Toby Kebbell’s Victor von Doom chief among them.
Producer Simon Kinberg insists that Fox still intents on moving forward with a Fantastic Four sequel, but that remains to be seen of course. For now, we can only speculate on what Trank’s cut of the film may have looked like.