You wouldn’t have thought that the Fantastic Four have remained one of the most popular teams in comic book history based entirely on how they’ve been treated on the big screen. A low budget effort was made in 1994 as an excuse to keep hold of the rights, Tim Story’s two mid-2000s blockbusters were painfully tedious, and Josh Trank’s reboot is one of the worst superhero movies ever produced.
So far, all of the Fantastic Four pics have been plagued by miscasting, but Story’s 2005 effort is by far the biggest offender. That being said, Chris Evans was great value as the Human Torch and Michael Chiklis certainly looked the part as Ben Grimm, but the rest of the ensemble was woeful.
Ioan Gruffudd and Jessica Alba were bad, but Julian McMahon’s Doctor Doom was something else entirely. However, some new concept art has now revealed that not only was Nicolas Cage the first choice for the role, but the effects team were even planning on giving the villain a terrifying body horror makeover, as you can see via the photos in the gallery down below.
McMahon’s performance was a damp squib to say the least, and while not even Nicolas Cage dialled up to eleven could have been able to save Fantastic Four – at least, we don’t think it would’ve been enough – the very idea of him devouring the scenery as a grotesque twist on Doctor Doom is ten times better than anything we got in the movie, which was released to general apathy from both fans and audiences fifteen years ago.
With any luck, Marvel Studios will finally give the team the film they deserve when they reboot them in the near future.
