Released to overwhelmingly negative reviews in 2015, the Fantastic Four reboot bombed at the box office and put Marvel's First Family back on the shelf after two moderately successful movies in the mid-2000s. That's where they've remained ever since, and while it's no secret that the movie went through significant changes during reshoots, early ideas called for a totally different premise.
Moon Knight Head Writer Jeremy Slater recently spoke to ComicBook.com about his early drafts and revealed both Galactus and Annihilus were considered for key roles in the film. However, while it sounds like Galactus was eventually dropped, it appears plans were in place to reveal Annihilus as Fantastic Four's big bad in the Negative Zone until fairly late in the pre-production process.
"We had Annihilus in my draft of the original Fantastic Four when they went to the Negative Zone for the first time they were attacked. In the very first draft, they were attacked by Galactus and the whole plot, it was Galactus had fired his sort of cosmic radiation through the portal and then you found out Galactus was sort of tracking that radiation back and was on his way to Earth."
"In the second draft, they actually encountered Annihilus and he was 20-feet tall and cybernetic...I pitched him as the T-Rex from Jurassic Park and the way he would be sort of hunting and attacking them, and it seemed like he was the one who killed Victor and they barely got back through the portal in time, but it felt like a really fun twist or fun way to use Annihilus that we hadn't seen."
That sounds like a unique take on Annihilus, but it's an idea that could have worked with the grounded tone promised by Fantastic Four's early trailers. Slater didn't clarify whether any scenes with the villain were shot (the entire final act was reworked in reshoots, hence why we didn't see the Fantasticar), but noted, "For one of a thousand reasons, that was something that got changed in that movie."
On the plus side, this means Marvel Studios can bring Annihilus to the big screen for the first time. He's a bad guy with an awful lot of potential and would make a welcome change from Doctor Doom, a villain who has now received the spotlight in every single Fantastic Four movie since 2005.