'Fantastic Four' Movie To Be 'A Perfect Storm' In Space

Posted Friday, November 1, 2002 at 1:08 PM Central

by Tim Briscoe

On the heels of the video and DVD release of Spider-Man, word comes of the plot of the next Marvel comic turned live-action movie. (Well, the next after Daredevil, The Hulk, X-Men 2, Iron Fist and Spider-Man 2... Whew!) Much like Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four movie will include the origin of the quartet and their battle against the group's chief nemesis, Dr. Doom in this case. However, this origin will be slightly different than the one from the comic.

The movie, which will cost an estimated $200 million to produce due to plenty of CGI effects, is scripted by Doug Petrie. Petrie, best known for his work on TV's "Buffy The Vampire Slayer", told DreamWatch magazine his version will be like, "A Perfect Storm in space."

The classic origin from the Marvel comic book created in 1961 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby centers around four individuals' encounter in outer space with cosmic rays which gives them each superhuman powers. Reed Richards becomes the stretchy Mr. Fantastic. Ben Grimm becomes the stone-bodied The Thing. Brother and sister Johnny and Sue Storm become The Human Torch and The Invisible Woman, respectively.

Petrie's story will include Victor Von Doom on the fateful spacecraft. Just before the ship encounters a giant space-wave (get the Perfect Storm reference now?), Petries says, "Victor blasts off in the escape pod, saving his own skin. He crash-lands to Earth and becomes [the masked Dr.] Doom because his face is lost in the reentry process, which is horrible and violent, while the four of them get bombarded by these mysterious rays and become the Fantastic Four."

The Fantastic Four movie has been in the works for some time at Fox. Bring It On director Peyton Reed is now helming the film of Petrie's script with Harry Potter director/producer Chris Columbus producing.

No word has been made for casting of the movie, although many names have been included in various rumors from time to time. Geoffrey Rush and Hugh Grant have been mentioned for Doom. A Marvel exec named George Clooney as his choice for Richards/Mr. Fantastic (as if that really matters).

This is all fine and good, but the question we still want answered is the one posed to Stan Lee by Jason Lee's character in Mallrats about The Thing's anatomy.