The Joy of Positivity Pick of the Day is the Mesmerizing Behind the Scenes Documentary Doomed: The Untold Story Of Roger Corman's Fantastic Four

Not every Fantastic Four movies scored with critics and/or audiences. One was so doomed that it was never even released!

The high-profile shelving of Batgirl makes Roger Corman’s ill-fated 1990s adaptation of The Fantastic Four less unique but no less remarkable. The never-released 1994 cheapie no longer has the distinction of being the only movie inspired by famous comic book characters that was canceled by the studio that created it, to the horror of its cast and crew.

The cast of The Fantastic Four thought that playing famous superheroes would help their careers. They did not realize they had signed on for a project designed to fail. The Corman The Fantastic Four wasn’t a movie but a suicide mission.

Superhero entertainment hadn’t yet conquered pop culture when The Fantastic Four got buried. The genre was so low-rent that Troma’s Lloyd Kaufman turned down a chance to make a Fantastic Four movie because it’d be beneath his dignity.

Roger Corman said yes. The Fantastic Four had a million-dollar budget. That was significant for Corman, but microscopic compared to a special effects-intensive superhero movie.

Everyone did their best with limited resources, but even Corman needed more money to make a convincing comic book movie. Yet, the filmmakers believed in the film so strongly that some used their own money to complete The Fantastic Four.

Doomed!: The Untold Story of Roger Corman’s The Fantastic Four is a dark comedy about the fraught intersection of entertainment and commerce.