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UPDATE: /Film just announced a new “Family friendly” version is in the works!
The Fantastic 4 (1994) was hidden. Listen to the inside scoop on the infamous Roger Corman “Fantastic 4.” It was a movie no one was supposed to see. The prints were burned. Who leaked it? Why would a company want to make a movie just to shelve it?
Chris Gore was the editor of “Film Threat” magazine. He did a cover story about the production – not knowing the film was doomed. DOOMED! Chris give his insight on this blockbuster bootleg. Everything you ever wanted (or not wanted) to know about the early ’90s feature film. Gore is a movie/comic book nut. So he goes off on fun tangents about all things nerdy. Luckily for us, being nerdy is in now.
I know Chris Gore was on before talking about The Fantastic 4 movie, but I wanted him to get into more details. So to my brother who called me out on having Chris Gore talk about the movie twice, lean back and learn more.
Here’s some background onThe Fantastic 4 from Wikipedia:
n 1983, German producer Bernd Eichinger met with Marvel Comics‘ Stan Lee at Lee’s Los Angeles home to explore obtaining an option for a movie based on theFantastic Four. The option was not available until three years later, when Eichinger’s Neue Constantin film company obtained it for a price the producer called “not enormous” and which has been estimated to be $250,000. Despite some interest from Warner Bros. and Columbia Pictures, budget concerns precluded any production, and with the option scheduled to expire on December 31, 1992, Neue Constantin 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.” In September 1992, he teamed with B-movie specialist Roger Corman, who agreed to produce the film on a $1 million budget.
Production of Fantastic 4 began on December 28, 1992 under music video director Oley Sassone. Storyboards were drawn by artist Pete Von Sholly. The 21-day or 25-day production was shot on the Concorde Pictures sound stage in Venice, California, as well as in Agoura, California for a spacecraft-crash scene, the Loyola Marymount campus for a lab-explosion scene, and the former Pacific Stock Exchange building in downtown Los Angeles for team-meeting scenes.
Costume designer Réve Richards recalled in 1993 going to Golden Apple Comics on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles to buy Fantastic 4 comic books for research, and, upon explaining his task, “[T]hese people in the store just swarmed me and said, ‘You are going to be faithful to it?’ And I told them, ‘This is why I am buying these books.'” Paul Ahern was hired as weapons consultant, and Scott Billups for computer visual effects. The special-effects makeup was by John Vulich and Everett Burrell of Optic Nerve.Stuntman Carl Ciarfalio, who wore a rubber suit to portray the monstrous superhero Thing, worked with actor Michael Bailey Smith, who played the Thing’s human self, Ben Grimm, so that their mannerisms would match. During the months of post-production, music composers David and Eric Wurst personally contributed $6,000 to finance a 48-piece orchestra for the soundtrack.
See the original Film Threat Magazine.