Welcome to #FlashbackFriday, where we look at past moments with filmmakers, actors, etc. and highlight something in cinema history that’s fascinating, amusing, perhaps something you never knew or have seen, you name it.
Look, we’re not normally fans of just posting links to full films. However, in light of this week’s passing of Stan Lee and the fact that Marvel never released the finished version, we have a special treat for superhero fans for this week’s #FlashbackFriday.
For those that aren’t familiar with superhero films before the new millennium, it was a dark time. Outside of a few, rare exceptions (notably Richard Donner’s “Superman,” Tim Burton’s “Batman,” “Blade,” and a couple more), the landscape of superhero films pre-2000 was laughably bad. And no, we’re not just talking about Joel Schumacher’s 1997 campy “Batman & Robin.” We’re talking “Supergirl,” “Barb Wire,” “The Punisher” (Dolph Lundgren’s version), “Spawn,” and perhaps worst of all, Shaq’s turn at the genre “Steel.”
But one of the forgotten “gems” of that era is the 1994 feature-length, live-action “Fantastic Four.” That’s right, before Tim Story gave us two ‘meh’ ‘FF’ films and Josh Trank (with the help of Fox) crapped the bed with “Fant4stic,” Marvel produced a version of “Fantastic Four” that was so terrible that it was buried forever, never to get an official release.
Directed by Oley Sassone, best known as a music video director at the time, and produced by one of the low-budget greats, Roger Corman, “Fantastic Four” was attempting to adapt Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s classic comic book series into live-action for the first time. However, limited by a lack of technology and a shoestring budget, “Fantastic Four” wasn’t able to accurately capture what made Marvel’s First Family so special. Instead, it’s filled with terrible special effects (even though The Thing looks as good here as any other film to date) and perhaps even worse acting.
Now, as we said, in honor of Stan Lee, here’s the entire 1994 “Fantastic Four” film (for as long as YouTube keeps it online). Enjoy!