The Fantasticar nearly appeared in the 2015 Fantastic Four film, and concept art for the move has finally revealed the flying car in detail. The Fantastic Four have had a rough go of it on the big screen. In the early 1990s, legendary B-movie producer Roger Corman helped put together a low-budget movie based on the classic Marvel Comics characters, but it was never officially released. In the mid-00s, director Tim Story helmed a pair of harmlessly inoffensive Fantastic Four movies, but they were a far cry from the standard set by 2002's Spider-Man.
Finally, in 2015, a dark and gritty reboot of Marvel's First Family was unleashed upon an unsuspecting public. Fant4stic, as it's come to be known, was eviscerated by critics and audiences alike, and the public battles between the film studio and director Josh Trank were evident in the movie itself. While producer Simon Kinberg had hoped to develop a sequel, the film's colossal box office failure combined with the Disney/Fox buyout led to the characters being returned to Marvel Studios, who plan to integrate them into the MCU when the time is right.
One of the most infamous aspects of 2015's failed Fantastic 4 reboot was the sheer number of ideas that were developed before being discarded. Numerous sequences shown in trailers and teased by marketing were entirely absent in the finished film, and the scenes made in reshoots are painfully obvious due to Kate Mara's unimpressive blonde wig, which is no less conspicuous than Henry Cavill's awkward CGI lip as seen in another famously bungled superhero blockbuster, Justice League. Now, thanks to an Instagram post from documentary filmmaker Ryan Unicomb, audiences can see one more discarded Fant4stic concept: the Fantasticar.
The image isn't what most people have in mind when they think of the Fantastic 4's trademark vehicle since it's doesn't share the shiny aesthetic of the car seen in Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer. Then again, it does kind of fit in with the tone of the film, a DIY job that prioritizes function over form. It's the vehicle of a team that is only just figuring out how things work between them and are more focused on surviving an immediate crisis than developing their brand.
It's been nearly five years since the release of this misbegotten film, and director Josh Trank's initial vision for the film was not represented by the movie that came out in theaters. While Fant4stic doesn't have nearly the traction of something like Zack Snyder's Justice League, there is still an audience that strongly wishes for the chance to see Trank's original director's cut of Fantastic 4. Whether or not the Fantasticar ever made it to the shooting stage is currently unknown. Maybe one day, years from now, Trank's version of Fantastic 4 will finally see the light of day, and audiences will get to find out whether or not this unique version of the Fantasticar would have looked good on screen.
Source: Ryan Unicomb via Instagram