Toby Kebbell Says There’s a ‘Great’ Cut of ‘Fantastic Four’ We’ll Never See

A lot of people were disappointed by last summer’s Fantastic Four. The reboot, directed by Josh Trank, was supposed to relaunch one of the most popular comic-book series in history and erase the memory of two previous, unpopular Fantastic Four movies in the process. It had a great cast, including Miles Teller, Kate Mara, and Michael B. Jordan. It had Trank, coming off his acclaimed superhero film Chronicle. It should have been the start of something huge.

When the dust settled, the only big thing about Fantastic Four was the size of its failure. It barely made more worldwide than the first FF movie (which, again, nobody particularly liked) grossed in the United States alone, and it took home the Razzies for Worst Picture and Worst Director. Rumors of a troubled and post-production flew all over the web, and shortly after the movie opened in theaters to dreadful reviews and equally miserable box office, Trank tweeted a statement that he had cut together “a fantastic version” of the movie a year earlier that “would’ve [received] great reviews,” but would never see the light of day because of studio meddling.

Though Trank quickly deleted that tweet, his words were essentially confirmed today by Toby Kebbell, who played Doctor Doom in Trank’s film. Kebbell told The Daily Beast that Trank “did cut a great film that you’ll never see,” one that was “a much darker version” that the movie that was ultimately released to theaters.

Kebbell’s Doctor Doom was one of the worst parts of Trank’s Fantastic Four. The armored scientist, magician, and madman is one of the greatest characters in the history of comics, but he was so poorly handled in the first two FF movies that Trank had almost nowhere to go but up with his Doom reboot. Note I said almost nowhere; 2015’s Fantastic Four’s Doom was still terrible, just in new and different ways. His motivations made no sense, his shift from ambiguous ally to mega evildoer was completely sudden, his powers were strange, and his costume was even more laughable than Julian McMahon’s.

According to Kebbell, though, most of the Doom in the movie wasn’t even him:

Unfortunately, I played Doom in three points: Walking down a corridor, killing the doctor and getting into the time machine, and lying on the bench. They were the only times I played Doom. Everything else was some other guy, on some other day ... doing some other thing. I was infuriated that he was allowed to limp like that!

Kebbell doesn’t say who played Doctor Doom in these scenes. It could have been a stunt double, but I’m betting they just got some Doombots to do it.

Kebbell, who also noted that he missed the press tour for Dawn of the Planet of the Apes filming scenes about Doom’s transformation that never even made the final cut, conceded that frustrations come with the territory when you work on giant studio releases. “But,” he added, “I’m very proud of my work. I’m also just as heartbroken as the fans are.”

And with that, the legend of the Fantastic Four: Director’s Cut grows...