With Marvel’s ‘first family’ finally joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe next month in The Fantastic Four: First Steps, we thought it would be a good time to look back at the theatrical history of this extremely troubled franchise. There have been three attempts across four movies to make the Fantastic Four work on the silver screen, from the unreleased 1994 Roger Corman production, to the two Tim Story-directed films at 20th Century Fox in 2005 and 2007, to the ill-fated production of 2015’s Fant4stic, which might just be the worst superhero movie ever made. Some of these movies are better than their reputations suggest – the Tim Story films, with a charming cast and good sense of tone, are fine, if not particularly special – but on the whole, Hollywood has never known what to do with these characters, and surveying these 30 years of failed attempts to bring the Fantastic Four into the cinematic mainstream makes for a fun and fascinating conversation.

Enjoy!

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