Video: Corman's Fantastic Four

I forget that the Tim Story Fantastic Four movies are actually the good ones at times. I remember reading, back when I was... oh... I think around ten years old, in a copy of Wizard that a Fantastic Four movie was actually in production and a couple of stills were printed in the magazine. I really didn't care about that movie in particular, but I was excited at the possibility of other comic-based movies coming down the pipeline. And then, there was nothing but a vasty nothingness in terms of news thereafter. I didn't even know it'd actually been made until I saw a bootleg copy on DVD last year at a swap meet, right next to a copy of the terrible Justice League live-action pilot. So, here's the story:

How did this disaster happen? A German production company owned the rights to make a Fantastic Four movie, but was unable to raise the $40 million it needed before the rights were due to expire. So the company turned to Roger Corman, who said he could make the movie cheap and quick. (As commenter ManchuCandidate points out, Corman was willing to take chances.) At $1.4 million, this movie had a huge budget compared to a usual Corman spectacle. After the film was completed, Marvel paid a few million to suppress it. The team worked in secret to complete post-production on it, but then Marvel ordered all prints destroyed

Based on how awful the trailer is, I'm almost tempted to track down a copy of the movie now. Almost.

Jump over to io9 to check out the film's awful climax and a more detailed explanation/analysis of the movie.

The Fantastic Four Movie Marvel Doesn't Want You To See [io9]