Max Landis Shares More Details On His Fantastic Four Trilogy Idea

Days after the release of Fantastic Four in theaters, Max Landis – who wrote director Josh Trank's debut film, Chronicle – released four pages from a Fantastic Four script he wrote years prior. The script detailed the would-be film's opening scene, which involved the FBI trying to prevent Reed Richards and company from attempted to launch into space using a craft built from a 1968 Corvair Ultra Van.

That script was never produced, but Landis shared a bit more detail about his vision for the Fantastic Four with The Daily Beast.

"My Fantastic Four was an on-the-run movie. It begins with their origin, which is an illegal Branson-esque space launch where they want to go see this thing. They become the biggest celebrities in the world, except then they wreck and they get these horrible powers. The government is hunting them and they split up, and you really get into the dynamics of these people as they're learning to control their powers. So the origin takes place in the first two minutes and then you learn it's a character movie. Avengers had just come out, and I wanted to present Fox's superhero team so that any one of them could beat all of the Avengers, and any one of them could be the villain of an Avengers movie. Reed Richards is indestructible. Sue Storm can control light. Johnny Storm can burn hotter than the sun. The Thing is impossibly strong, and you can't hurt him no matter what you do. I thought, what a cool idea, that these four friends have accidentally become gods. I had Doctor Doom as a good guy, one of Reed's college friends, and my whole movie he's trying to find and help them but it wasn't clear if he was good or bad—until the finale of the movie when you realize his connection to Reed, and that they're best friends. The audience who knows Doctor Doom thinks he's going to turn bad, but the movie ends with him saving them. And in the sequel he's probably good, too. You know, you Sam Raimi-Spider-Man it—at the end of the sequel he gets all ***ed up and shows up in the Doctor Doom armor. But then in the third movie he's like, 'What have you done to me?'"

Landis' script sounds like the antithesis of what was ultimately directed by Trank, whom Landis describes as a high school "frenemy." Would it have fared any better at the box office? We'll never know, but you can tell us what you think in the comments below.