FANTASTIC FOUR Director Releases Scene Featuring The Thing on THE DATING GAME and Explains Missing Footage in the Film
The Fantastic Four: First Steps was a crowd-pleaser, but one gripe some fans voiced was the fact that some of the scenes, and even one character, we saw in the trailers were missing from the final film.
While director Matt Shakman has already addressed the unfortunate necessity to cut John Malkovich’s character from the film, and he is now talking about some of the other footage that fell to the cutting room floor.
In a recent interview with Collider, Shakman explained the editing process for the film, and disclosed that they were working the footage while the movie was in production.
He added, “It helps you realize what you’re shooting to edit as you go, down to, ‘I’m missing a shot here. I need something else here, too. Oh, wow, this connection is so great. I need to do more of that or less of this.'”
He went on to explain why they consciously wrote and filmed additional scenes that were ultimately left behind in the editing room.
“We intentionally wrote and shot a lot more than we ended up using or needing to use for their past. There’s a ton of stuff that you’ve seen probably bits and pieces of — the tour of the Baxter Building or Reed’s Mister Fantastic show, or even Ben on The Dating Game.”
Shakman elaborated that they shot these scenes because they knew they needed to “build a big world,” and “explain what they’ve [the heroes] been doing for four years, because our movie started four years after that.” He stated that while they eventually didn’t use it all, the fact they knew that they had more footage was “helpful.”
You can check out the Ben Grimm Dating Game footage below, which was reportedly developed as a proof of concept even before production started. It’s a lot of fun, and we will hopefully get to see even more of it when the film is released to own. The Fantastic Four: First Steps is currently in theaters.