A Fantastic Four Movie Image Has Gone Viral On Twitter - For The Worst Reason
The Fantastic Four have made a lot of headlines as of late, the majority of them leaning in the positive direction. After all, anticipation is high for the team's upcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe debut. Marvel's First Family is getting its own film, appropriately titled "Fantastic Four," and the main cast was announced through a very telling reveal image. However, the most recent online buzz the team has conjured up doesn't have to do with the new movie, nor is it positive. An image from a previous Fantastic Four-centric film is making the rounds online almost exclusively because of how awful it is.
https://t.co/pjUX9gQNFo pic.twitter.com/IRMfDHsd3b
— Ben 🏳️🌈🍀🎬 (@The_GM_is_God) June 11, 2024
Once upon a time, director Oley Sassone signed on to create a Fantastic Four movie. The 1994 feature, titled "The Fantastic Four," was never released, but unauthorized and unfinished versions have gone public. Publicity stills and behind-the-scenes snaps have emerged as well, such as the one posted by @The_GM_is_God on X, formerly known as Twitter. It features the cast together in their cheap-looking outfits — armpit sweat stains and awkward nether region imprints and all. It's an incredibly unflattering photo that shows not only how rough the costumes looked but how uncomfortable they must have been for the cast to wear.
Though the angles and lighting do little to help these Fantastic Four costumes out, it's worth giving them some credit for their embrace of comic book accuracy.
At least these costumes are comic accurate -- unlike other Fantastic Four attempts
With a budget of just $1 million, "The Fantastic Four" was fighting an uphill battle from the very beginning. Producing a superhero epic that even closely resembled the source material with so little funds to work with, especially in an era largely devoid of convincing CGI, was a mammoth task. Thus, it's no surprise that the costumes for the titular team don't look great in that photo or the film. At the same time, the minds behind "The Fantastic Four" deserve credit for producing outfits in line with the team's comic appearances.
It's undeniable that the "Fantastic Four" suits look like they leaped right off of the pages of John Byrne's "Fantastic Four" run. Is the quality the best? Certainly not, but at least they don't try to reinvent the wheel to so-so or downright disappointing effect. The suits used in the "Fantastic Four" duology from the 2000s aren't horrific, though their muted color scheme and shrunken "4" emblem leave something to be desired.
Still, at least one can argue that they appear somewhat inspired by the comics, specifically the original "Fantastic Four" and "Ultimate Fantastic Four" suits. The same doesn't go for those in the "Fantastic Four" reboot from 2015, which some argue isn't as bad as you think. These "realistic" uniforms seen above are bland and lack any signifiers that they belong to the Fantastic Four. Poor Thing (Jamie Bell) doesn't even have pants.
They may not have been well-made, or well-tailored to the actors in them, but the 1994 "Fantastic Four" suits remain the most comic-accurate suits for the team ever designed for a live-action movie.