Fantastic Four Other Media
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In other media
There have been four The Fantastic Four animated TV series and three feature films (though one of the movies went unreleased, and is only available in a widely circulated bootleg). The Fantastic Four also guest-starred in the "Secret Wars" story arc of the 1990s Spider-Man animated series as well as in the "Fantastic Fortitude" episode of the 1996 Hulk series. There was also a very short-lived radio show in 1975 that adapted early Kirby/Lee stories, and is notable for casting a pre-Saturday Night Live Bill Murray as the Human Torch. Also in the cast were Bob Maxwell as Reed Richards, Cynthia Adler as Invisible Woman, Jim Pappas as Thing and Jerry Terheyden as Doctor Doom. Other Marvel characters featured in the series included Ant-Man, Prince Namor, Nick Fury and the Hulk. Stan Lee narrated the series, and the scripts were taken almost verbatim from the comic books. The team made only one other audio appearance, on the Power Records album The Amazing Spider-Man and Friends. The Way It Began featured Stan Lee himself in the role of Johnny Storm and saw Ben Grimm reliving the origin of the FF, before leaving the Baxter Building to find their original nemesis the Mole Man, and a possible cure for Alicia's blindness. The story was never followed up on any further Power Records albums. In 1979, the Thing was featured as half of the Saturday morning cartoon Fred and Barney Meet the Thing. The character of the Thing was given a radical make-over for the series. The title character for this program was Benji Grimm, a teenage boy who possessed a pair of magic rings which could transform him into the Thing. The other members of the Fantastic Four do not appear in the series, nor do the animated The Flintstones stars Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble, despite the title of the program.
Animated Series
- Fantastic Four (1967) - Produced by Hanna-Barbera
- Fantastic Four (1978) - Produced by DePatie-Freleng (featuring a H.E.R.B.I.E. Unit in place of the Human Torch)
- Fantastic Four (1994) - broadcast under the Marvel Action Hour umbrella, with introductions by Stan Lee
- Fantastic Four: World's Greatest Heroes (2006) - Cartoon Network
Video games
In 1998, a side-scrolling video game was released for the Sony PlayStation home video game system / platform, based on the Fantastic Four characters. In the game you and a friend could pick among the Fantastic Four characters (along with the She-Hulk), and battle your way through various levels until you faced Doctor Doom. The game was widely panned by critics for having weak storyline and handling of the characters' powers.
The Fantastic Four appeared in the Super NES and Sega Genesis video games based on the 1990s Spider-Man animated series and in their own multi-platform games based on the 2005 movie.
The Thing and the Human Torch appeared in the 2005 game Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects.
All of the the Fantastic Four appear as playable characters in the game Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, although they only had small and rather unimportant roles in the story.
The Human Torch has an appearance in a mini-game where you race against him in all versions of the Ultimate Spider-Man game except for Game Boy Advance.
The Fantastic Four are also featured prominently in the game based on the 2005 Fantastic 4 movie. And in another game based on the second Fantastic 4 movie (released in 2007). Both games were poorly rated for many reasons, such as the fact that the stories in both games did not strictly follow the plots in the films and both games had poor graphics and gameplay.
Film
A movie adaptation of The Fantastic Four was completed in 1994 by famed B movie director/producer Roger Corman. While this movie was never released to theaters or video, it has been made available from various bootleg video distributors. The film was made on a shoestring budget and is largely mocked by fans of the comic book foursome for what they see as poor acting and disappointing special effects (at one point, The Human Torch — played by a human actor — turns into an obvious cartoon upon "flaming-on").
The film was made because the studio that owned the movie rights would have lost them if it did not begin production by a certain deadline (a tactic known as creating an ashcan copy). According to producer Bernd Eichinger, Avi Arad had Marvel purchase the film for a few million dollars.
Another feature film adaptation of Fantastic Four was released July 8, 2005 by Fox, and directed by Tim Story. Fantastic Four opened in approximately 3,600 theaters and despite predominantly poor reviews grossed US$156 million in North America and US$329 million worldwide, weighed against a production budget of $100 million and an undisclosed marketing budget. It stars Ioan Gruffudd as Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic, Jessica Alba as Susan Storm/Invisible Woman, Chris Evans as Johnny Storm/Human Torch, Michael Chiklis as Ben Grimm/The Thing and Julian McMahon as Victor Von Doom/Dr. Doom, with Stan Lee making a cameo appearance as Willie Lumpkin, the mailman.
On October 22, 2005, Fox announced the plans for a sequel, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, to be directed by Story and written by Don Payne, with production scheduled to begin August 2006. The film was released June 15, 2007.