Since its release last week, Deadpool & Wolverine has been celebrated for paying homage to classic Marvel films through numerous cameos. Shawn Levy, Ryan Reynolds, Hugh Jackman, and their team managed to include many characters from Fox’s comic book movies, but the 2015 Fantastic Four was notably absent.
Despite including the superpowered family from Tim Story’s 2005 film, the much-criticized 20th Century Studios reboot was missing, although not for lack of effort. In a spoiler-filled interview, Reynolds explained to Collider’s Steve Weintraub just how close they were to featuring the group.
Fantastic Four, often referred to as Fant4stic, was the lowest-grossing film featuring Marvel’s first family, largely due to its poor reception from critics and audiences. The film holds a 9% score on Rotten Tomatoes, with a similarly low audience score.
Despite this, it boasted a star-studded cast including Miles Teller as Reed Richards, Kate Mara as Sue Storm, Michael B. Jordan as Johnny Storm, and Jamie Bell as Ben Grimm. Given the broad scope of Deadpool, this superhero movie would have fit well.
Reynolds revealed that Fant4stic 4 was indeed considered for Deadpool & Wolverine, but a few factors prevented its inclusion. Primarily, it lacked the impact of another significant Fantastic Four cameo, and there were budget concerns and licensing issues related to an R-rated film. He explained:
Yeah, that was a part of it. But like that, you’re never going to get the mislead with like, Chris Evans, you know, with him doing it and the kind of license to thrill after that, with Chris. So you know, and also, we were trying to be mindful of the budget. We were trying to make the movie.
We always understood it’s rated R, you know. It isn’t a blank check, and part of our responsibility is to return the investment that they’re making in us. So I never want a budget that I don’t feel like I can make good on. And the more kind of toys you start asking for and the more kind of characters you start wanting to license, the deeper in that sort of point of no return becomes.
