'Fantastic Four' Actor Admits They were "Workshopping The Movie" When Production Began Because The Script Was Not Completed
Ebon Moss-Bachrach, who plays The Thing in the upcoming Fantastic Four: First Steps film, revealed that they began production on the film and were workshopping because a script had not been completed.
Moss-Bachrach informed Variety, “I don’t think the script was fully ready at the time that we started, so we were sort of workshopping the movie in a way. We were doing a lot of shared research, talking to astronauts and scientists and watching a lot of Apollo footage together.”
Additionally, director Matt Shakman shared that they made significant changes to the film’s narrative throughout the process. He said, “We definitely made some changes to narrative stuff, but it wasn’t major. We were using fine sandpaper the whole time.”
One of those changes was cutting John Malkovich, who was supposed to play the villain the Red Ghost, and was set to appear at the beginning of the film. Shakman explained, “There was a lot of stuff to balance in this movie, and some things had to go. John is one of my favorite humans and one of my biggest inspirations. It was heartbreaking not to include him.”
The idea that Marvel was workshopping a film and changing one of their projects’ narratives on the fly is unfortunately not out of the ordinary. Secret Invasion director Ali Selim was asked by Olivia Singh at Insider, “From what other Marvel directors and actors have said, sometimes things in the scripts change at the last minute or the day of filming. What was your experience like for Secret Invasion? How closely did it follow all the scripts and how much room was there for improvisation or adjustments?”
He responded, “I don’t wanna play semantic games, but I think of it as an evolution. As you hunt down story, everything is constantly evolving. And it’s a fascinating process.”
“I guess there are moments of improv, like between Sam and Don, between Sam and Ben. There are really rich moments of improv. There are actors who rely more on the script,” he elaborated. “And I think as we are editing, we’re still finding the story. We were finding the story on episode six up until episode one had already aired. That’s part of the beauty of it, is that Marvel just keeps hunting it down and using the resources they have to come up with the best story possible, and that quest never ends.”
Additionally, he shared that making story changes was above his paygrade, especially when he was asked about Maria Hill’s death. He said, “Why she’s killed is another question for the MCU. I just did the best I could making it feel truthful and emotional, and I am grateful that I have not yet received death threats for killing off Maria Hill.”
What do you make of Moss-Bachrach and Shakman’s comments?
NEXT: Pedro Pascal's Reed Richards To Lead The Avengers Says 'Fantastic Four' Director
The workshopping sounds like they were using AI to write it. A hundred million dollars on the line and they’re figuring it out as they go? WTF
It sounds like this movie was poorly planned, poorly written, poorly cast and it will do poorly at the box office. I do like their rendition of The Thing, however. Almost an original comic look for him.