The new movie Fantastic Four: First Steps opens this weekend, and Marvel, as a well as Marvel fans, are holding their breath hoping it will be good. The Fantastic Four comic book characters haven't had a great run at the box office; in fact this is the fourth attempt at making a Fantastic Four movie. The first was back in 1994, when Roger Corman and Bernd Eichinger produced The Fantastic Four, which was never released and indeed was only made so that Eichinger could retain the film rights to the characters. Their budget was only $1 million, but if anyone could squeeze a superhero film out of such a budget, it was Roger Corman. Enjoy the nonsensical plot, lack of action scenes, and cheap production values in this Honest Trailer.
The Fantastic Four of 1994 answers the question "How bad could it be?" and makes all the subsequent Fantastic Four movies look good by comparison. The story of the production is wild- the actors used their own money to promote the film, trailers were shown, and a premiere event was set. Then it all suddenly stopped. One version of the story has it that Eichinger never intended to release the film. But Eichinger said that Marvel Studios founder Avi Arad heard about the impending release and paid him $2 million for all prints of the movie to be destroyed. However, if you enjoyed this Honest Trailer, you can watch the full movie at YouTube.
And this weekend, look for the four principle actors from the 1994 movie as they appear in cameos in Fantastic Four: First Steps.