Fantastic Four (2005 film)

Dr. Reed Richards, along with his friend, Ben Grimm, convinces Dr. Victor Von Doom, CEO of Von Doom Industries, to allow him access to his space station to test the effects of exposure of clouds of cosmic energy on biological samples. Von Doom agrees, and recruits his chief genetics researcher (and Reed's ex-girlfriend) Susan Storm and her reckless brother Johnny Storm.

They arrive in space to study the cosmic clouds, but the clouds arrive ahead of schedule. Reed, Susan, and Johnny leave the shielded station to rescue Ben, out on a space-walk to place the samples, while Victor closes the shields behind them to keep himself protected. The storm breaks through the station and strikes the four. They return home but soon begin to develop strange powers. Reed is able to stretch like rubber, Susan can become invisible and create force fields, Johnny can engulf himself in fire, and Ben is transformed into a large, rock-based creature with superhuman strength and durability. Victor meanwhile faces a backlash from his stockholders due to the publicity from the failed mission.

On the Brooklyn Bridge, Ben accidentally causes a traffic pile-up while stopping a man from committing suicide. The four use their various powers to contain the damage and save lives. While the public cheer them for their efforts, Ben's fiancée arrives to silently split their engagement, unable to accept him for his condition. Reed vows to a heartbroken Ben to reverse the effects. The media dubs them "The Fantastic Four," and Victor exploits the news story to his stockholders, but they decide to pull out of Von Doom Industries. The four move into Reed's lab in the Baxter Building to study their abilities and work on finding a cure. Victor offers his support in their efforts, but blames Reed for the mission's failure.

Reed plans to construct a machine to re-create the storm and reverse their conditions. However, Johnny refuses to cooperate, insisting they should just embrace their powers. Meanwhile, Victor, having also been affected by the storm due to the shields' malfunctioning, begins mutating into organic metal and is able to produce electricity, and begins plotting to use his new powers to take his revenge.

Victor drives a wedge between Ben and Reed, resulting in Ben walking out in a rage. This motivates Reed to attempt the machine on himself, but he cannot generate enough power to push the storm to critical mass. Victor hears this, and brings Ben to the lab. Ben is placed in the machine and Doom uses his abilities to produce the electricity needed to power it, turning Ben back to normal and accelerating Doom's condition, causing much of his body to turn to metal. Victor knocks Ben unconscious and kidnaps Reed.

Victor, now calling himself "Doom," tortures Reed using a super-cooling unit and fires a heat-seeking missile at the Baxter Building to kill Johnny. He flies through the city to evade it, lighting a garbage barge on fire to trick it. Sue rushes to free Reed and battles Doom but is outmatched. Ben arrives to help, transformed into The Thing again by reusing the machine. The battle spills into the streets, and the four assemble to battle Doom. Johnny and Susan combine their powers to wrap Doom in an inferno of intense flames, and Ben and Reed douse him with cold water, inducing thermal shock and freezing Doom in place.

In an epilogue, Ben tells Reed to forget about his experiment with the machine, as he has accepted his condition through his relationship with Alicia Masters, a blind artist. The team decide to embrace their roles as superheroes, and Reed proposes to Sue. Meanwhile, a frozen Doom is transported back to his homeland of Latveria.

• Ioan Gruffudd as Reed Richards / Mr. Fantastic
• Jessica Alba as Susan Storm / Invisible Woman
• Chris Evans as Johnny Storm / Human Torch
• Michael Chiklis as Ben Grimm / Thing
• Julian McMahon as Victor Von Doom / Doctor Doom
• Hamish Linklater as Leonard
• Kerry Washington as Alicia Masters
• Laurie Holden as Debbie McIlvane
• Kevin McNulty as Jimmy O'Hoolihan
• Maria Menounos as Nurse
• Michael Kopsa as Ned Cecil
• Stan Lee as Willie Lumpkin

As in almost all of the previous Marvel Comics-based films, Fantastic Four co-creator Stan Lee makes a cameo appearance. He is Willie Lumpkin, the postal worker who greets the team on their way to the Baxter Building elevator.[6] Hugh Jackman reprises his role as James Howlett / Logan / Wolverine from the X-Men film series in a scene in which Reed Richards changes his face to resemble Jackman's portrayal of Wolverine in an attempt to woo Susan Storm; the scene was deleted from the theatrical cut of Fantastic Four and was restored in the "Extended Cut" of the film. Canadian broadcasters Terry David Mulligan and Ben Mulroney, and American broadcaster Lauren Sánchez make cameos as reporters.[7] Cameos during the X Games scenes include professional freestyle motocross riders Kenny Bartram and Brian Deegan, and reporter Jamie Little. David Parker and Pascale Hutton appeared as Ernie and Nightclub Girlfriend, respectively.

In 1983, German producer Bernd Eichinger met with Stan Lee at his home in Los Angeles to explore obtaining an option for a movie based on the Fantastic Four.[8] The option was not available until three years later, when Eichinger's Constantin Film company obtained it from Marvel Comics for a price the producer called "not enormous", and which has been estimated to be $250,000.[9] Warner Bros. and Columbia Pictures showed interest, but were cautious of Eichinger's $40–45 million budget.[9][10] With the option scheduled to expire on December 31, 1992, Eichinger asked Marvel for an extension. With none forthcoming, Eichinger planned to retain his option by producing a low-budget Fantastic Four film, reasoning, he said in 2005, "They didn't say I had to make a big movie."[9] In 1992 he approached B-movie specialist Roger Corman on the idea of producing the film on a $5 million budget in order to keep the rights,[10] which he eventually decided to bring down to $1 million.[9] In 1994, the adaptation, titled The Fantastic Four had its trailer released to cinemas, and its cast and director went on a promotional tour, however the film was not officially released. The film was accused of being an ashcan copy, meaning it was only made to keep the license.[11] Lee and Eichinger stated that the actors had no idea of the situation, instead believing they were creating a proper release.[12] Marvel Comics paid in exchange for the film's negative, so 20th Century Fox could go ahead with the big-budget adaptation, as well as a possible spin-off film starring the Silver Surfer for summer 1998.[13]

Now under production by Avi Arad and Ralph Winter, Fox hired Chris Columbus to write and direct Fantastic Four in 1995.[14] He developed a screenplay with Michael France, but decided to step down as director and focus on producing Fantastic Four under his 1492 Pictures company. Peter Segal was hired to direct in April 1997,[13] and was replaced by Sam Weisman by the end of the year.[15] Fox brought in Sam Hamm to rewrite the script in April 1998[16] in an attempt to lower the $165 million projected budget.[13] In February 1999, with development taking longer than expected, Eichinger and Fox signed a deal with Marvel to extend the control of the film rights for another two years, with a summer 2001 release planned,[17] and hiring Raja Gosnell to direct.[18] However, Gosnell decided to do Scooby Doo instead and dropped out in October 2000.[19] He was replaced by Peyton Reed in April 2001[20] and Mark Frost was brought on board for another rewrite. Reed departed in July 2003,[21] explaining in 2015, "I developed it for the better part of a year with three different sets of writers. But it became clear after a while that Fox had a very different movie in mind and they were also chasing a release date … so we ended up parting company."[22] Reed's version was described as being influenced by A Hard Day's Night. Mads Mikkelsen auditioned for Reed Richards / Mr. Fantastic,[23] but Ioan Gruffudd was cast, later; he called his audition as "humiliating".[24] Later, another actors joined the film; Jessica Alba as Sue Storm / Invisible Woman, Chris Evans as Johnny Storm / Human Torch, Michael Chiklis as Ben Grimm / The Thing and Julian McMahon as Dr. Victor Von Doom.[25] Sean Astin was one of the candidates to direct the movie,[26] his reasoning for wanting to direct it, despite never having directed a feature before nor read any of the comics, was that he wanted to step up in filmmaking and felt that doing a Fantastic Four film would allow him to leave a mark. Despite not getting the job, Tom Rothman was impressed with his determination and hoped to work with him on a future project.[27][28][29] Astin wanted to cast Christina Aguilera to portray Sue Storm alias the Invisible Woman.[26][27][30]

Tim Story was signed to direct in April 2004, after Fox was impressed with his early cut of Taxi and that Story is a fan of the comics.[31][32][33] Simon Kinberg wrote uncredited drafts of the script.[34] After seeing The Incredibles, Eichinger was ordered to make significant script changes and add more special effects because of similarities.[35]

The main version of Fantastic Four on VHS and DVD was released in December 2005. This version had some changes from the one shown in cinemas. Some of these changes included the following:

• There is a scene where Reed and Susan are in a storage room of the Baxter Building. On one of the shelves is a robot that is supposed to be H.E.R.B.I.E. from the Fantastic Four animated cartoon series from 1978.
• The biggest change is of the scene with Jessica Alba and Ioan Gruffudd's characters looking toward the Statue of Liberty. Similar lines are used in the DVD version, but the version on DVD replaces that with the pair in the planetarium, where they discuss their feelings for each other without an argumentative tone. The DVD includes the theatrical version as a bonus feature, but instead of Reed forming a square jaw, as he does in the theatrical version, he makes his skin look like that of Wolverine of the X-Men comics. The actor Gruffudd breaks the fourth wall and looks directly at the camera as he does this. This scene was created in hopes to create a cinematic universe between This film, Fox's X-Men and Sony's Spider-Man. Wolverine was also set to appear in a cameo in Spider-Man 2. The extended cut includes this as part of the movie, along with a longer version of the scene in the planetarium.[55]

The movie was also released on VHS the same day, it was later released on Blu-ray on November 14, 2006.[56]

Fantastic Four received a novelization written by popular Marvel Comics writer Peter David, which included several scenes not in the movie.[57]

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
IGN	6.9/10[58]
Allmusic	[59]

Fantastic 4: The Album is the official soundtrack to the movie Fantastic Four. The soundtrack features two supergroups that were formed specifically for the album: Loser (former Marilyn Manson guitarist/writer John 5) and T.F.F. (featuring Brody Dalle of The Distillers, Chris Cester of Jet, Nick Zinner of The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Dolf de Datsun of the Datsuns).[60][61]

An album of John Ottman's score was released by Varèse Sarabande on July 12, 2005.

Additionally, Gabin's song "Bang Bang to the Rock n' Roll" was featured in the film, but not used on the soundtrack.

• Fantastic Four (2005 video game)
• Fantastic Four in film

Wikiquote has quotations related to Fantastic Four.

• Official website
• Fantastic Four at IMDb
• Fantastic 4 title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Fantastic Four at AllMovie
• Fantastic Four on Marvel.com