Out, is he? After months of speculation, John Malkovich’s mystery role in The Fantastic Four: First Steps has been confirmed to be that of cosmonaut Ivan Kragoff, the intangible Marvel villain known as the Red Ghost, who has been phased out of the 1960s-set Marvel Studios movie. Director Matt Shakman revealed in an interview with Variety that the Con Air and Being John Malkovich star was cut from the finished film pitting the family — Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic (Pedro Pascal), Susan Storm/Invisible Woman (Vanessa Kirby), Johnny Storm/Human Torch (Joseph Quinn), and Ben Grimm/Thing (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) — against cosmic threats the Silver Surfer (Julia Garner) and Galactus (Ralph Ineson).
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Malkovich, who previously starred in Shakman’s 2014 feature directorial debut Cut Bank, “was brilliant in it, and gave it his all,” the filmmaker told Variety of the actor’s Fantastic Four role. But due to the nature of the ensemble and sub-two-hour run time, “There were a lot of things that ultimately ended up hitting the cutting room floor.”
The Red Ghost — along with his cosmic-powered Super-Apes, Igor, Miklho, and Peotor —reportedly appeared in an action sequence early in the film’s first act, in which the ghost-like Russian sabotaged a New York City monorail. The Fantastic Four would then abandon a talk show appearance on The Ted Gilbert Show and spring into action.
Shakman explained, “When we were building a ’60s retro-future world, introducing all of these villains, introducing these four main characters as a group, as well as individually, introducing the idea of a child [Franklin Richards] — there was a lot of stuff to balance in this movie and some things had to go ultimately in terms of shaping the film for its final version.”
Ultimately, that included Malkovich’s role. “It was heartbreaking not to include him in the final version of the movie because he’s one of my very favorite humans and one of my biggest inspirations,” Shakman said, adding, “What he’s done on stage as an actor and what he’s done as a director in theater as well as in film, and as just a film actor of incredible ability — I was honored he came to play.”
The actor’s Marvel role came about because he wanted to work with Shakman again, as he revealed in a GQ profile earlier this year. While Malkovich played a villain in the DC-based western Jonah Hex in 2010, a critical and commercial misfire starring Josh Brolin and Megan Fox, he’d previously turned down offers to do Marvel movies.
“The reason I didn’t do [Marvel movies] had nothing to do with any artistic considerations whatsoever,” Malkovich said. “I didn’t like the deals they made, at all. These films are quite grueling to make.”
He continued, “If you’re going to hang from a crane in front of a green screen for six months, pay me. You don’t want to pay me, it’s cool, but then I don’t want to do it, because I’d rather be onstage, or be directing a play, or doing something else.”
John Malkovich’s Vulture in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 4
In 2009, it was reported that Malkovich was circling the villain role in the Sam Raimi-directed Spider-Man 4, which Sony Pictures had dated for May 6, 2011. After the 2007 trilogy ender Spider-Man 3 saw Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man face off against a trio of villains — James Franco’s Harry Osborn/New Goblin, Thomas Haden Church’s Flint Marko/Sandman, and Topher Grace’s Eddie Brock/Venom — it was rumored the fourth film was to introduce Malkovich’s Vulture, aka Adrian Toomes, and Anne Hathaway as Felicia Hardy, aka the burgling Black Cat. (Initial reports claimed Felicia would become an original character called the Vulturess, but Hathaway confirmed in 2023 that she was cast as Black Cat — despite never reading a script. Shortly after, Hathaway played Catwoman in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises in 2012.)
Raimi’s plans for the canceled Spider-Man 4 also included frequent collaborator Bruce Campbell, who made cameos across the Spider-Man trilogy as a wrestling announcer, an usher, and a maître d’, as another Spider-Man villain: Mysterio, the master of illusions.
In 2016, leaked storyboards revealed Malkovich’s Vulture fighting Spider-Man, as well as the wall-crawler arresting Mysterio. Storyboard artist Jeffrey Henderson told Gizmodo that the fishbowl-helmeted villain would have appeared in an opening montage of “C and D-list villains that we knew would never be used as main antagonists: Mysterio, the Shocker, the Prowler, the old school-onesie-wearing version of the Rhino, maybe even the Stilt Man, etc.”
But Vulture, who would have wielded his razor-sharp wings in an action sequence set high above New York City, was to be particularly vicious as the film’s main villain. “The thing we kept coming back to was that, as a character, everyone was going to dismiss the Vulture as just an old guy in a silly green suit,” Henderson said. “So we wanted to go the opposite way and really make him the most fearsome and formidable adversary that Spider-Man had faced in the series.”
Raimi’s Spider-Man 4 “would’ve been one absolutely kick ass movie,” Henderson wrote when sharing the storyboards on his website. “Seriously. We were working on some crazy- cool stuff, because everyone, from top to bottom, felt that Spidey 3 was a bit of a ‘missed opportunity’, and we all really wanted to help Sam take SM4 to another level so he could end the series on a high note.” Like Malkovich’s Fantastic Four villain Red Ghost, the film never materialized.
The Fantastic Four: First Steps, sans Malkovich, opens in theaters July 25.
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