Here's What 'Fantastic Four' Could Have Been, According to the Writer
So every film site on the internet has talked extensively about the disaster that was 2015's Fantastic Four reboot, but now co-writer Jeremy Slater, who wrote the original draft of the film, has talked about the "10-15 drafts" he wrote over a six-month period, and his experience in that time before being replaced.
“Lots of humor, lots of heart, lots of spectacle,” is one way he'd describe the script he wrote, a tone that clearly got scrapped for a "grounded, gritty" final product. The Baxter Building that featured at the start of the film was initially envisioned as "a sort of Hogwarts for nerds: a school filled with geniuses zipping around on prototype hoverboards and experimenting with anti-gravity and teleportation and artificial lifeforms." The on-screen depiction of this school was lifeless and cold.
“In addition to Annihilus and the Negative Zone, we had Doctor Doom declaring war against the civilized world, the Mole Man unleashing a 60-foot genetically-engineered monster in downtown Manhattan, a commando raid on the Baxter Foundation, a Saving Private Ryan-style finale pitting our heroes against an army of Doombots in war-torn Latveria, and a post-credit teaser featuring Galactus and the Silver Surfer destroying an entire planet,” Slater added.
“We had monsters and aliens and Fantasticars and a cute spherical H.E.R.B.I.E. robot that was basically BB-8 two years before BB-8 ever existed. And if you think all of that sounds great… well, yeah, we did, too. The problem was, it would have also been massively, MASSIVELY expensive.”
Only one line of Slater's dialogue remained in the final cut, "Don't blow up." It was intended for a more "80s-era Amblin feel to it that fans would have appreciated, right down to a cinematic recreation of Jack Kirby's original Fantastic Four #1 cover."
With the rights reverting in a few years, it's likely that a sequel will be made. The film earned $56 million from its $120 million budget, though globally earned $167 million.
Source: Comingsoon
