Fantastic Four
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Tim Story
Produced by	Avi Arad Bernd Eichinger Ralph Winter
Written by	Michael France Mark Frost
Based on	Fantastic Four  by Jack Kirby Stan Lee
Starring	Ioan Gruffudd Jessica Alba Chris Evans Michael Chiklis Julian McMahon
Music by	John Ottman
Cinematography	Oliver Wood
Editing by	William Hoy
Studio	20th Century Fox Constantin Film Marvel Enterprises 1492 Pictures
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release date(s)	June 29, 2005 (2005-06-29) (Jamaica) July 8, 2005 (2005-07-08) (United States)
Running time	105 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$100 million
Box office	$330,579,719

Fantastic Four is a 2005 American superhero film inspired by the Marvel Comics comic Fantastic Four. It was directed by Tim Story, and released by 20th Century Fox. It is the second live-action Fantastic Four film to be filmed. A previous attempt, titled The Fantastic Four, was a B-movie produced by Roger Corman that ultimately went unreleased. Fantastic Four was released in the United States on July 8, 2005. Despite getting major hype on its release and becoming a box office success, the film was negatively received by critics. It was the third superhero film of the year, after Elektra and Batman Begins. A sequel, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, was released in 2007.

Plot [edit]

Physicist Dr. Reed Richards is convinced evolution was triggered millions of years ago on Earth by clouds of cosmic energy in space, and has calculated that one of these clouds is soon going to pass near Earth. Together with his friend, astronaut Ben Grimm, Richards convinces Dr. Victor von Doom, his former classmate at MIT and now CEO of Von Doom Industries, to allow him access to his privately owned space station to test the effects of a biological sample of exposure to the cloud. Doom agrees in exchange for control over the experiment and a majority of the profits from whatever benefits it brings. Richards brings aboard his chief genetics researcher and ex-girlfriend Susan Storm and her hot-headed astronaut brother Johnny.

The quintet travels to outer space to observe the cosmic energy clouds, but Richards miscalculates and the clouds materialize ahead of schedule. Richards and the Storms leave the shielded station to rescue Grimm, who had gone on a spacewalk to place the samples. Grimm receives full exposure in outer space, while the others receive a more limited dose within the station. Back home they soon develop strange superpowers. Richards can stretch his body like rubber, Susan Storm can become invisible and generate impact resistant force shields, Johnny Storm can engulf himself in fire and fly unaided, and Grimm becomes a rocklike creature with superhuman strength and durability. Meanwhile, von Doom faces a backlash from his stockholders because of the publicity from the space mission, and has a scar on his face that came from an exploding control console on the station

Grimm's fiancee Debbie cannot handle his new appearance and leaves him. Grimm goes to brood on the Brooklyn Bridge and accidentally causes a traffic pileup while preventing a man from jumping off the bridge. Grimm, Richards and the Storms use their various abilities to contain the damage and prevent harm. The media dubs them the Fantastic Four. They move into Richards' lab in the Baxter Building to study their abilities and seek a way to return Grimm to normal. Von Doom, himself mutating, offers his support but blames Richards for the failure of the spaceflight, which has lost him his company.

Richards tells the group he will construct a machine to recreate the storm and reverse its effects on them, but warns it could possibly accelerate them instead. Meanwhile von Doom's arm has become organic metal, allowing him to produce bolts of electricity, and he begins plotting revenge. He drives a wedge between Grimm and Richards, who has rekindled his relationship with Susan Storm. Using the machine, Richards and von Doom restore Ben to human form, while accelerating von Doom's condition, causing much of his body to turn to metal. Von Doom knocks the human Grimm unconscious and captures Richards.

Now calling himself Doctor Doom, he puts on a metallic mask to hide his disfigurement, tortures Richards and fires a heatseeking missile at the Baxter Building in an unsuccessful attempt to defeat Johnny Storm. Susan Storm confronts Doom but is outmatched. Grimm arrives to assist her, transforming back into the Thing by reusing the machine (speaking his signature line, "It's clobberin' time!"). The battle spills into the streets. The Storms combine their powers to wrap Doom in an inferno of intense heat, and Grimm and Richards douse him with cold water, inducing thermal shock and freezing Doom in place. In an epilogue, Grimm informs Richards that he has accepted his condition with the help of Alicia Masters, a blind artist for whom he has developed feelings, and the team embraces its role as superheroes. Richards proposes marriage to Susan Storm, who accepts. Meanwhile, Doom's statue-like remains are being transported back to his homeland of Latveria when the dockmaster's electronic manifest briefly undergoes electromagnetic interference, suggesting that Doom is alive.

Cast [edit]

• Ioan Gruffudd as Reed Richards / Mr. Fantastic
• Jessica Alba as Sue Storm / Invisible Woman
• Chris Evans as Johnny Storm / The Human Torch
• Michael Chiklis as Ben Grimm / The Thing
• Julian McMahon as Victor Von Doom / Doctor Doom
• Hamish Linklater as Leonard
• Kerry Washington as Alicia Masters
• Laurie Holden as Debbie McIlvane
• David Parker as Ernie
• Kevin McNulty as Jimmy O'Hoolihan
• Maria Menounos as the Sexy Nurse
• Michael Kopsa as Ned Cecil
• Kenny "Cowboy Kenny" Bartram as himself
• Ronnie Renner as himself
• Stan Lee as Willie Lumpkin

As in almost all of the previous Marvel Comics-based films, Fantastic Four co-creator Stan Lee makes a cameo appearance. He is Willie Lumpkin, the postal worker who greets the team on their way to the Baxter Building elevator.^[1]

Release [edit]

The American premiere of Fantastic Four was moved from July 1, 2005, to the week of July 8 to avoid competition with Steven Spielberg's new motion picture War of the Worlds during its first week.^[2] Fantastic Four opened in 3,602 movie theaters in the United States, and this increased to 3,619 theaters in the following week.^[3]

Box office [edit]

In paid attendance, Fantastic Four was a commercial success, and it achieved the top position in gross income with about $56,061,500 collected during its first weekend. By September 2005, the Fantastic Four had accumulated a gross income of about $330,579,700 from theaters around the world, about $154,696,080 of this coming in the United States.^[4]

Critical response [edit]

Fantastic Four received unfavorable reviews from critics and audiences. This movie scored only a 27% rating on Rotten Tomatoes^[5] and 40 out of 100 at Metacritic.^[6]

Home release [edit]

The main version of Fantastic Four on DVD was published in December 2005. This version had some changes made from that which had been shown in cinemas. Some of these changes included the following:

• There is a scene where Reed and Sue are in a storage room of the Baxter Building where we see on one of the shelves is a robot that is supposed to be H.E.R.B.I.E. from the Fantastic Four animated cartoon series from 1978.

• The biggest change is in the theatrical version showed a scene with Jessica Alba and Ioan Gruffudd's character looking toward the Statue Of Liberty. Similar lines are used that was in the version on DVD but it ends with Susan's turning invisible before Gruffudd's Reed can kiss her. When Reed describes Victor as "a stronger man", he creates a square jaw emphasizing that. The version on DVD replaces that with the pair in the planetarium, where they discuss their feelings for each other without an argumentative tone. The DVD includes the theatrical version as a bonus feature, but instead of the square jaw, he makes his skin look like that of Wolverine of the X-Men comic strips. The actor Gruffudd breaks the fourth wall and then looks directly at the camera as he does this. The extended cut includes this as part of the movie along with a longer version of the scene in the planetarium.^[7]

• When Dr. Doom fires his heatseeking missile, there are no beep sounds before this takes place.

• The theatrical version shows Doom saying "And to think I was going to spend the rest of my life with you" when attacking Sue Storm, but in the DVD version, it depicts him laughing instead.

• Three slightly modified scenes concerning the attack on Dr. Doom - one in which Reed uses his body as a funnel to direct a stream of water at Doom, one in which he does not, and one in which Doctor Doom's line "Is that the best you can do, a little heat?" is cut short, having the "..a little heat?" portion removed.

The novelization of the motion picture contains a number of scenes that were not in the final cut of the movie, including a small number of scenes that developed the character of Alicia Masters.

Extended cut [edit]

In June 2007, an extended cut on DVD of Fantastic Four was published. This incorporated about 20 minutes of deleted scenes, and it also includes a preview of the sequel, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. This DVD expands on The Thing's relationships with Alicia Masters, Doctor Doom's manipulations to break up the group, and the Human's Torch's womanizing, and how it backfires.^[7]

Soundtrack [edit]

Fantastic 4: The Album
Soundtrack album by Various Artists
Released	June 28, 2005
Recorded	Various times (2003–2005)
Genre	Alternative metal, hip hop, hard rock, alternative rock
Label	Wind-Up
Producer	Various
Marvel Comics film series soundtrack chronology chronology
Elektra: The Album (2005) Fantastic 4: The Album (2005) X-Men: The Last Stand: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (2006) Singles from Fantastic 4: The Album "Come on, Come in" Released: June 21, 2005 "Everything Burns" Released: July 4, 2005

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
IGN	6.9/10[8]
Allmusic	[9]

Fantastic 4: The Album is the official soundtrack to the movie Fantastic Four. The soundtrack features two supergroups that were formed specifically for the album: Loser (former Marilyn Manson guitarist/writer John 5) and T.F.F. (featuring Brody Dalle of The Distillers, Chris Cester of Jet, Nick Zinner of The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Dolf de Datsun of the Datsuns).^[10]

Score [edit]

An album of John Ottman's score was released by Varèse Sarabande on July 12, 2005.

1. Main Titles (2:34)
2. Cosmic Storm (4:47)
3. Superheroes (5:52)
4. Experiments (2:41)
5. Planetarium (1:28)
6. Entanglement (1:13)
7. Power Hungry (4:26)
8. Changing (2:47)
9. Lab Rat (4:50)
10. Unlikely Saviors (2:15)
11. Bye Bye Ned (2:16)
12. Battling Doom (7:02)
13. Bon Voyage (1:16)
14. Fantastic Proposal (2:21)

Sequel [edit]

A sequel, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, was released on June 15, 2007. Director Tim Story and the cast reprised their roles for the sequel. In the film, the Fantastic Four encounter the Silver Surfer. The film had a mixed, but overall better reception.

See also [edit]

• Fantastic Four in film
• Fantastic Four (2005 video game)
• The Fantastic Four

References [edit]

External links [edit]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Fantastic Four

• Official website
• Fantastic Four at the Internet Movie Database
• Fantastic Four at AllRovi
• Fantastic Four at Rotten Tomatoes
• Fantastic Four at Metacritic
• Fantastic Four at Box Office Mojo
• Fantastic Four on Marvel.com