Despite showing up in the first teaser for the movie, speculation mounted that the legendary John Malkovich may have been cut from The Fantastic Four: First Steps after the actor's name was absent from a recent synopsis.
Now, we have confirmation that Malkovich's character - the villainous Red Ghost - will not appear in the MCU reboot.
“There were a lot of things that ultimately ended up hitting the cutting room floor,” director Matt Shakman tells Variety. “When we were building a ’60s retro-future world, introducing all of these villains, introducing these four main characters as a group, as well as individually, introducing the idea of a child — there was a lot of stuff to balance in this movie and some things had to go ultimately in terms of shaping the film for its final version.”
As previously reported, the Red Ghost was originally going to feature in an opening sequence detailing the team's early years as superheroes.
In the comics, Ivan Kragoff was a Russian scientist who attempted to replicate the conditions that gave the Fantastic Four their powers. After building a ceramic ship, he flew to the moon with three trained apes: Peotor the Orangutan, Miklho the gorilla, and Igor the Baboon.
The cosmic rays gave Kragoff and his simian allies incredible powers, with Peotor developing control over magnetism, Miklho gaining enhanced strength, and Igor becoming a shape-shifter. Ivan himself gained the ability to become intangible at will, taking the supervillain monicker Red Ghost.
Malkovich doesn't have much luck with Marvel Comics characters, as he was previously set to play The Vulture in Sam Raimi's fourth Spider-Man movie before the project was scrapped.
First Steps stars Pedro Pascal (The Last of Us, Freaky Tales) as Reed Richards, aka Mr. Fantastic, Vanessa Kirby (Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning) as Sue Storm, aka the Invisible Woman, Joseph Quinn (Stranger Things, A Quiet Place Day One) as Johnny Storm, aka The Human Torch, Ebon Moss-Bachrach (The Punisher, The Bear) as Ben Grimm, aka the Thing, and Julia Garner (Wolf Man, Ozark) as the Silver Surfer.
Ralph Ineson will play Galactus, and Natasha Lyonne, Paul Walter Hauser and John Malkovich are also on board in undisclosed roles.
"Set against the vibrant backdrop of a 1960s-inspired, retro-futuristic world, Marvel Studios' The Fantastic Four: First Steps introduces Marvel’s First Family—Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic (Pedro Pascal), Sue Storm/Invisible Woman (Vanessa Kirby), Johnny Storm/Human Torch (Joseph Quinn) and Ben Grimm/The Thing (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) as they face their most daunting challenge yet.
Forced to balance their roles as heroes with the strength of their family bond, they must defend Earth from a ravenous space god called Galactus (Ralph Ineson) and his enigmatic Herald, Silver Surfer (Julia Garner). And if Galactus’ plan to devour the entire planet and everyone on it weren’t bad enough, it suddenly gets very personal."
Matt Shakman directs The Fantastic Four: First Steps, which is set to hit theaters on July 25, 2025.