Fantastic Four Cut a Big Action Sequence, Here's Why

One of the biggest criticisms of the recent superhero flop Fantastic Four was the messy structure and confusing ending, which suggested considerable studio interference. The trailer included numerous moments that never made it into the final film--which isn't unusual in itself, as trailers are often put together before films are entirely finished.

However, one moment seemed to originate from a major action scene. We see The Thing, leaping from a high-tech aeroplane into some sort of army base, before being blasted by machine guns. It's a key moment in the trailer, and not usually the sort of thing that gets completely cut from movies of this type.

Now Entertainment Weekly have revealed exactly what that scene was, and why it never made it into the movie. It was intended to bridge the gap between earlier sequences in which the team gain their powers and the 'one year later' time-jump that forms the end of the movie. It's a scene in which The Thing--now working for the US government--invades a Chechen rebel base and takes out the enemy mercenaries before US soldiers move in to the finish the job.

According to EW, director Josh Trank was forced to cut this scene before production even began, in order to reduce the budget. However, when Fox executives realised that the film wasn't exactly filled with action, they agreed to finance the sequence--but without Trank's involvement. Unfortunately, the resulting footage, shot by a second unit, looked so different from the rest of the film that it had to remain on the cutting room floor.

Here's the trailer from Fantastic Four--moments from this missing scene can be seen at 2:09 and at the very end.