'Fantastic Four' Star Explains Threequel Cancelation: "Beyond My Control"

It’s time for Marvel to celebrate its first family’s first major success (despite a big decline in the box office last week), and it seems fair that fans can’t stop comparing The Fantastic Four: First Steps to the studio’s previous attempts to adapt the famous comic book.

Yes, those were attempts rather than worthy adaptations, so no wonder they were immediately brought back in even more infamous light than ever before.

So far, the cast and crew of 2015’s Fantastic Four has kept silence on the matter, but one of the leads from Tim Story’s 2005 version was recently here to reflect on why another movie in the not-so-well-performing franchise never happened.

The real reasons were never unveiled, but I think Marvel’s fans aren’t the ones to fool — at least in this case.

‘Fantastic Four’ Ioan Gruffudd Says There Was “That Sort of Momentum” for a Third Movie

The actor, who portrays Reed Richards aka Mister Fantastic in both Fantastic Four and its sequel Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, has recently turned back to the scandalous matter of why the franchise’s plan to make yet another movie went down the drain almost right after the sequel premiered.

“The mindset was that we were going to do three, and I think the second movie was equally successful as the first and equally enjoyable for the fans. So there was definitely that sort of momentum, and the plan was to do three movies, but these decisions are beyond my control”, Gruffudd said during a Q&A session with Vulture, which also aimed at drawing a clear comparison between Marvel’s current hit and its not so hit-ty predecessor.

The actor also added that, despite all the complications that those movies had back in the day, he seemingly wouldn’t mind reprising his role — even if it means showing up as one more Mister Fantastic on par with Pedro Pascal.

“This idea of people showing up has been introduced, like Chris [Evans’ Johnny Storm] in Deadpool [& Wolverine], or I think Mister Fantastic appeared in the guise of John Krasinski at one point”, Gruffudd stated, adding that “you never know” when an opportunity will manifest itself.

Here’s Why I Think ‘Fantastic Four’ Third Movie Was Never Even Meant to Happen

I might not be the biggest Marvel expert out there, but it wouldn’t take me too long to see what the problem is either.

Ever since Iron Man premiered back in 2008, it signalled the new era for Marvel that would now be bringing in millions or even billions of dollars with practically every new movie, and Fantastic Four’s results didn’t look good in this case.

The first film grossed $333 million which isn’t bad, but still average considering the $100 million budget; the sequel would later do even worse with $300 million against the $130 million budget.

It’s not even necessary to bring in the movies’ low scores from both critics and audiences on Rotten Tomatoes, and I guess those humble earnings were enough for Marvel to switch to new stories rather than keep developing the same middling one.