Despite having taken three shoulder separating swings that each amounted to misses with the Fantastic Four film franchise, Fox still remains dedicated to the property and even hopes for a fourth go around. For some reason, they just haven’t had luck printing money with Marvel’s First Family in the same way they have with the X-Men. Go figure.
One actor who you could say dodged a bullet then is Mads Mikkelsen, who’s become a fan favorite in recent years having played the title character on NBC’s Hannibal and eventually Kaecilius in Doctor Strange for Marvel Studios. By that, I specifically mean he auditioned for a role in the ill-fated 2015 Fantastic Four reboot that we assume would’ve been Doctor Doom.
The experience apparently left a bad taste in his mouth though, as he recently told Short List the following:
“I’ve had tons of them. We’ve all been there. We all show up and it’s a little office room with a desk and some books and they want you to do a scene where you have two lines – maybe not even two lines – maybe just ‘Bleurgh!’ or ‘Get back!’ And you’re hiding behind a palm tree that’s not there. It’s like, ‘Guys, couldn’t you have picked a different kind of scene to this? This is fucking mad.’ You feel like an idiot.”
Obviously, we don’t know which scene they offered him as a sampling, but it sounds much more mundane than what he probably expected from a summer tentpole. As it so happens, he ended up showing himself the door:
“I think I walked out on the Fantastic Four one. I think I actually said, ‘I can’t do it. It’s not about you, I’m sorry, this is wrong.'”
Now, we can’t fully be sure of what context “this is wrong” is to be taken in, as it could be anything from a poorly written scene to him even having familiarity with the Fantastic Four comics and being less than thrilled with the studio’s new take. Still, you know there’s a problem when star Toby Kebbell fully admits that the end product wasn’t great. And had Mikkelsen taken the gig, we imagine he’d be weeping blood right about now just as his character Le Chiffre did in Casino Royale.