Early in development, Fox’s disastrous Fantastic Four reboot showed enormous promise. From what we learned last week, preliminary drafts of the script plotted out vastly different story paths for the titular quartet, and their foe Doctor Doom. But how different might those iterations have been?
Thanks to a Facebook post from an artist involved early on in production, we have an inkling at what was in store for Dr. Doom’s residence within the alternate universe. Steve Jung published four pieces of his work accompanied by the following caption:
Might as well show some work from this movie called Fantastic Four lol. I was on this one early on before all the drama happened… none of my work made it to the movie (kinda glad) since it got changed many times after I left the project. Exploration of the Planet Zero and Victor’s castle ideations. Btw the texture of the terrain is cigarette buds from a picture of the director’s ashtray.
All of the images appear in the above gallery. Quite a lot of the overall feeling Jung intended to impart from his vision of Planet Zero isn’t a million miles away from what wound up onscreen – with one big exception: Doom’s castle. It’s a glimpse into a version where Doom tussles with another big bad on Planet Zero, and takes command of that leader’s stronghold. His swollen ego turns Doom into a larger-than-life figure who then just wants to destroy everything and claim whatever’s left as his own. It added a bit of weight to his tyranny, as opposed to the final product that depicted him as a nutjob with no motivation.
Take a stroll through the gallery above to see what could have been the Fantastic Four. Way back when Doom’s involvement was a fully-fleshed story and not just a bookended spot of villainy.