Fantastic Four (2005) on Netflix
PG-1320051h 46mActionFantasySci-Fi
Reed Richards persuades Victor Von Doom to let him test cosmic energy on biological samples aboard Doom's space station. Susan Storm, her brother Johnny, and Ben Grimm join the flight.
- Netflix2.1/5
- IMDb5.7/10379,186 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes28%
Trailer
Plot summary
Victor Von Doom, the head of Von Doom Industries, agrees to let Reed Richards use his orbiting station to study how cosmic energy clouds affect biological samples. Victor brings in his chief genetics researcher, Susan Storm, who was once Reed's girlfriend, and her reckless brother Johnny, while Ben Grimm, Reed's friend, comes along as well. In orbit the clouds show up earlier than anyone planned. Ben is outside setting the samples in place, so Reed, Susan and Johnny go out past the station's shields to bring him in, and Victor seals the shields to keep himself safe. The storm hits all four of them. Back on Earth their bodies begin to change. Victor's stockholders turn on him over the mission's failure.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Fantastic Four (2005)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Facing a December 31, 1992 option deadline and no extension from Marvel, German producer Bernd Eichinger turned to B-movie director Roger Corman to make a low-budget Fantastic Four film, eventually cutting the budget to $1 million, purely to keep the film rights.
- In the DVD version, Ioan Gruffudd's Reed Richards makes his skin look like Wolverine instead of forming a square jaw, and Gruffudd breaks the fourth wall to look at the camera. The scene was made hoping to launch a shared cinematic universe with Fox's X-Men and Sony's Spider-Man, and Wolverine was also set for a cameo in Spider-Man 2.
- Tim Story's Fantastic Four was the highest-grossing superhero movie by an African-American director until Ryan Coogler's Black Panther in 2018, having taken $330.6 million by the end of 2005.
- Chris Columbus was hired in 1995 to write and direct, and developed a screenplay with Michael France before stepping down to produce; in 2025 he revealed he was actually fired after telling executives to make the film using conceptual art based on Jack Kirby and Marvel's Silver Age.
- Peyton Reed signed on to direct Fantastic Four in April 2001 and spent the better part of a year with three sets of writers before leaving in July 2003, saying Fox had a different movie in mind. He later reused his ideas for Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.
- Robert Downey Jr. was initially considered for the role of Doctor Doom in Fantastic Four, and was later cast as the character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, appearing in The Fantastic Four: First Steps in July 2025.
- Sean Astin, a candidate to direct, wanted Christina Aguilera and Michael Chiklis as Sue Storm and the Thing, and approached Cameron Diaz for Sue Storm, who declined because she did not want to wear superhero makeup.
- Michael Chiklis played Ben Grimm / the Thing entirely through practical effects rather than CGI, a choice the actor himself insisted on.
