Fantastic Four Extended Edition Coming to HBO Max

Tim Story’s Fantastic Four, released in 2005 to solid reviews and strong box office, seemed to be, once it hit the home video market, a work constantly in progress. Now, the extended cut of the movie, which was released on DVD in support of the 2007 release of Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, is headed to HBO Max, where it will presumably keep Zack Snyder’s Watchmen and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justce — neither of which are the Ultimate Cut for some reason — company on the WarnerMedia-controlled app. This means that, due to the vagaries of licensing and HBO’s lucrative broadcast contracts, Marvel’s First Family will find a home with the DC heroes in July.

As soon as the movie hit VHS and DVD in December 2005, there was already some slight differences to the theatrical cut, including a purported cameo by H.E.R.B.I.E. In 2006, it hit Blu-ray and then in June 2007, the extended cut of the movie was released to DVD. Per Wikipedia’s breakdown of the differences, “It incorporated about 20 minutes of deleted scenes, and also included a preview of the sequel, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. The DVD expanded on The Thing’s relationships with Alicia Masters, Doctor Doom’s manipulations to break up the group, and the Human Torch’s womanizing, and how it backfires.”

The idea of extended cuts was nothing new for Fox, who had done similar home video releases for a director’s cut of Daredevil in 2004. They had also released X-Men 1.5, a feature-rich DVD reissue of the first Bryan Singer X-Men movie which was released on the same day as X2: X-Men United came to home video for the first time.

The 2005 Fantastic Four movie was the first officially-released film based on the characters, although in 1994, filmmaker Oley Sassone directed a low-budget movie from producer Roger Corman, which was produced in order to preserve the rights for Constantin Films. A documentary film called Doomed!: The Untold Story of Roger Corman’s The Fantastic Four was released in 2015 and is available to stream for free on Tubi.

Josh Trank’s 2015 Fantastic Four movie is currently available to stream on Disney+ — although, we’re sorry to say, there’s not much hope for a “Trank Cut” of that critically-maligned film.

Millions of tweets later and Warner Brothers will soon release Zack Snyder’s Justice League, the official name the studio is calling the “Snyder Cut” of the Justice League theatrical release. Shortly afterward, fans instantly started campaigning for David Ayer’s version of Suicide Squad, a movement the director has already cast doubt on. Now, people are asking Josh Trank if fans will ever see his cut on Fox’s Fantastic Four reboot. If you were still holding out hope to see the cut the filmmaker intended, you might not want to hold your breath. Trank quickly shot down the idea on Twitter Saturday night.

After a fan said they were “coming for” Fantastic Four next, Trank issued a super simple response: “No need.”