There's no way to sugarcoat it: 2015's Fantastic Four was a disaster. Once the hopeful beginning of a franchise for Marvel's First Family, the movie was plagued with production issues, and suffered from a subpar marketing campaign. Upon release, Fantastic Four became a pariah in the comic book genre.
The Josh Trank-directed feature scored a 9% on Rotten Tomatoes, and earned $167 million worldwide against a reported budget of $120 million—an abysmal result for a film released in the same year as Avengers: Age of Ultron and Ant-Man.
Now, Miles Teller, who played Reed Richards in the ill-fated adaptation, has opened up about the project. Speaking to SiriusXM, his past foray into the superhero genre was brought up. The actor was asked if, during press for the film, the Fantastic Four cast was aware of the project's poor quality. In response, The Spectacular Now star called the whole affair "unfortunate," and singled out one unnamed individual he considers responsible for the film's failure:
"I think it's unfortunate for that, because so many people worked so hard on that movie. And honestly, maybe there was one really important person who kind of f—ed it all up. Yeah."
Furthermore, the actor stated that part of his motivation for joining the project was to establish himself as a leading man: "But no, [...] especially as a young actor, at that time, it's like, 'All right, if you wanna be taken seriously as a leading man, you gotta get on this superhero train.' And that was our chance, and the casting, I thought, was spectacular. I love all those actors."
Teller went on to reveal that, after watching Fantastic Four, he approached a studio head and expressed his concern over the fate of the project: "When I first saw the movie, I remember talking to one of the studio heads, and I was like, 'I think we're in trouble.'"
Though Teller did not name names, the "important person" he's referring to could be the movie's aforementioned director, Josh Trank. It's been widely speculated and reported that Trank did not get along with Teller. Their reported animosity got to a point where the two allegedly nearly came to blows on set. Entertainment Weekly (via Comicbook.com), for example, reported that:
"On set, Trank was said to be abusive and insulting to the crew and cast. The studio hadn't wanted Whiplash star Teller, but Trank had fought for him. Then he ended up almost fighting Teller, who has a reputation for sarcasm and recalcitrance while working. At one point, the conflict nearly became physical, with Trank and Teller chest to chest, daring each other to throw the first punch. Neither did."
EW also reported that Trank did not want to cast Kate Mara as Sue Storm, but Fox insisted on him doing so. In response, Trank allegedly took out his frustrations on the House of Cards actress. According to the outlet: "Sources say his interactions with her at times ranged from cold to cruel." During a 2020 interview with Emmy Magazine, Mara herself would go on to call her experience on the film "horrible."
The director also infamously tweeted out he had made a "fantastic" version of the film that nobody would be able to see: "A year ago, I had a fantastic version of this. And it would've received great reviews. You'll probably never see it. That's reality though." The post spread quickly throughout the internet, to the point were it reportedly cost Fantastic Four between $5-$10 million in ticket sales.
The Fantastic Four: First Steps is available to stream on Disney+.
What do you think about Miles Teller's comments? Is there anything you like about 2015's Fantastic Four?