It's no secret by now that the new reboot of The Fantastic Four isn't very good. The Marvel comics' adaptation has been savaged at both the box office and by critics.
Right as the initial wave of bad press began rolling, in Josh Trank, the film's director, posted a short rant on his Twitter page (that was quickly deleted) suggesting that interference from Fox, the studio behind the production, was the cause of its dismal reception.
"A Year Ago I had a fantastic version of this. And it would've received great reviews. You'll probably never see it. That's reality though." Said Trank in his tweet.
Now, a new story published by Entertain Weekly exposes the film's troubled production and details an entire action sequence that was present throughout its trailers and marketing material, but was nowhere to be found in the final cut.
In the trailers, we see shots of 'The Thing', played by British actor Jaime Bell, airdropping out of an airplane. According to the EW report, that scene was supposedly part of a large action sequence at around the midway mark of the movie.
Spoilers for the film's plot follow.
After the Fantastic Four and Victor Von Doom gain their powers from an ill-fated expedition to the mysterious 'Planet Zero', the film jumps in time picking up the action a year later with three of the group's members - Sue Storm, Johnny Storm, and Ben Grimm, - working as supersoldiers for the US Government.
The deleted sequence was supposed to slot in between this time jump, and would showcase The Thing clobbering some rebel soliders.
"Rather than some elegant, balletic action sequence, The Thing moves slowly and deliberately. He's in no hurry. The storytelling goal was to show the futility of firepower against him as he casually demolishes the terrorists. It's a blue-collar kind of heroism." Says the EW piece.
Would it have made a better film? We may never know.
