Fantastic Four was released in 2005, and while it was far from a critical darling, the movie grossed an impressive $330 million worldwide. While a sequel, 2007's Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, quickly followed, 20th Century Fox's ambitions for Marvel's First Family stretched beyond that.
The Thing actor Michael Chiklis recently appeared at C2E2, revealing that the studio was so buoyed by Fantastic Four's success that it immediately started mulling over possible spin-offs.
One of those involved pitting Ben Grimm against one of his most iconic comic book rivals, The Hulk. A dream clash for comic book fans, it's also something Chiklis had pushed to make a reality, seemingly with the full support of studio executives.
"We’re doing the comics for 50 years for crying out loud. There is no end to the things that could be done in this world," the actor told fans (via Popverse). "One thing I wanted to do, and we were in discussions about at the time, and it just didn’t happen, was one of my favourite issues from back in the day when I was a kid was Hulk vs. Thing. And they just didn’t do it."
"They didn’t follow through on it, and I was bummed about that because I thought, man, that could have been so much fun." Pushed to elaborate on whether that was wishful thinking on his part or something Fox actually discussed, Chiklis suggested it was the latter.
"This was a spinoff idea. There were so many ideas being bandied about between the first one and the second one. And quite honestly, I don’t know what happened after the second one," he noted. "I didn’t hear from anybody for the longest time. It is what it is, but those movies, correct me if I’m wrong, but they made three-quarters of a billion dollars."
After praising Ebon Moss-Bachrach's take on The Thing, Chiklis added, "I just feel strongly that we all really put in a great effort on those first two films, and I stand by them."
A Hulk vs. Thing movie is a fun idea in theory, but one that could have been a nightmare to figure out, since old Jade Jaws was tied up at Universal Pictures at the time. Even now, that deal seemingly prohibits Marvel Studios from making a solo Hulk movie.
On Fox's watch, many projects revolving around the Fantastic Four failed to come to fruition. That included a crossover event also featuring the X-Men and Daredevil, a supporting role for the 2015 version of the team in Deadpool 2, and a reboot that took place from the point of view of Franklin and Valeria Richards.
Could Chiklis be allowed to play Ben Grimm again with Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars on the horizon? You can find out what the Fantastic Four star told us about that in the video below.