Mr. Fantastic isn’t monkeying around in the first deleted scene from The Fantastic Four: First Steps. Director Matt Shakman’s Marvel movie forgoes the foursome’s origin story, opening with talk show host Ted Gilbert (Mark Gatiss) recapping how astronauts Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal), Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby), Johnny Storm (Joseph Quinn), and Ben Grimm (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) encountered a DNA-altering cosmic storm during a space mission. Returning to Earth with “abnormalities” — fantastic super powers — the Fantastic Four became the protectors of Earth 828.
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In a montage of the team’s first four years, we see the Fantastic Four thwarting the Mole Man’s (Paul Walter Hauser) attempt to steal the Pan Am building, their battle with giant monster Giganto, and the Mad Thinker’s sabotage of the New York City transit system. We’re told they defeated the Red Ghost (John Malkovich) and his Super-Apes, with Reed elongating himself to scurry up a launchpad before the elastic leader of the Fantastic Four slingshots himself into Peotor, sending the cosmic-powered orangutan into the bay below.
It’s the only remnant of a deleted action sequence featuring Malkovich’s Fantastic Four villain, who was phased out of the finished cut for time. But on Instagram, storyboard artist Jeremy Simser shared a never-before-seen look at Mr. Fantastic’s extended fight scene with Miklho the gorilla:
“I really wish you all could see this scene in its entirety, but alas, it’s not meant to be,” Simser wrote with the frames, which show Reed stretching himself to evade the Super-Ape’s punches. Simser also shared a homage to legendary artist Alex Ross’ cover for 2024’s Fantastic Four #22, in which the baboon Igor forcefully stretches Reed’s skin:
Before the Silver Srufer (Julia Garner) arrives to herald the coming of Galactus (Ralph Ineson), Reed tells the family that he’s started tracking super-criminals like the Puppet Master in the Bowery, the Wizard in Gramercy Park, and Diablo in Washington Heights. Although the classic Fantastic Four villains only appear in animated form in the post-credits scene, Shakman has suggested such foes “certainly could come back” in a sequel.
“John did an amazing job,” Shakman told EW of Malkovich’s cut villain, the Red Ghost. “He’s a fantastic actor. He is one of my favorite people, and he’s brilliant in the movie. It just was such a heartbreaking thing to have to eliminate that section, but we had so much to introduce. We had so many characters to introduce this whole world, this whole other universe, and it just became too much backstory.”
He continued, “There are so many great villains and so many great characters in the Fantastic Four [comics], and there are hopefully other opportunities down the road to include them.” But first, the Four will face archnemesis Doctor Doom (Robert Downey Jr.) in Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars.
The Fantastic Four: First Steps is now playing only in theaters.
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Image Courtesy of Marvel Studios -
Image Courtesy of DC Comics
