Doomed: The Untold
Story of Roger Corman's The Fantastic Four
Director:
Marty Langford
Year: 2015
Rating: 6.0
Remember that first attempt at bringing The Fantastic Four comic book to
the screen? The one with Jessica Alba, Michael Chiklis, Chris Evans and Kerry
Washington? Well, this isn't about that film. How about the Fantastic Four
film starring Alex Hyde-White, Jay Underwood, Rebecca Staab. Joseph Culp
and Kit Green? Not too likely but that is because it was never officially
released. But it was the first Fantastic Four film made. Back in the early
1990's before Marvel ruled the world there wasn't much going on. They had
brought Spider-Man to the TV screen in 1979 without much success and a year
earlier the Japanese had a TV Spider-Man as well that I am sure would be
fun to watch. In 1990 a disastrous version of Captain America made it to
the big screen. And though it was outside the Marvel Universe the 1974 film
version of Wonder Woman landed with a dull thud (though the TV series that
started up the following year was a success). But the lesson seemed to be
that super hero films didn't work on the big screen.
Unless you were Superman of course. Superman though had such a built in audience
from the much loved TV show of the 1950's that every child grew up watching.
But even Superman had worn out its welcome by 1990 with the terrible Superman:
The Quest for Peace. But even with this track record in 1993 Constantin Film
came to Roger Corman with the rights to the Fantastic Four and asked him
if he could make a Fantastic Four film for $1 million and shoot it very quickly.
Corman being Corman of course said yes. And so they hired a director, crew
and cast and in about a month shot the film. Added special effects, composed
a musical score, promoted the film and were set to go to the premiere - when
suddenly the film was pulled. Forever.
The head of Marvel, Ari Arad, saw value in their franchise and didn't want
a cheap film being put out there that would hurt the brand name and bought
the film from Constantin and Corman. The film was not only pulled - but Arad
claims to have burnt the negative. The director and crew were of course devastated
- they thought they had made a terrific film and most of the documentary
is composed of many of these folks talking about making the film and the
aftermath. And they are great to listen to - their enthusiasm for the film
is palpable - they had expected the film to give their careers a big boost.
Well, I am not so sure it would have from the clips they show. Apparently,
a copy of the film was sneakily transferred to video and it is out there
in the netherworld if you look for it. But the clips - admittedly from a
copy of a copy of a vhs video and we know how that looks - look really cheesy
like a bad TV show and IMDB with about 4,000 voters gives it a rating of
3.9 (out of 10). This film about that film gets a much higher rating. It
is if not a tragic story by any means, but it is an intriguing one - many
think the film was never intended to be shown but was just a way to force
Marvel to pay up for their rights back - and a lesson that even in art, finance
always wins.
