The release of The Fantastic Four: First Steps has brought Marvel’s first family into the MCU, but it has also sparked a reappraisal of 2005’s Fantastic Four movie and its sequel, Rise of the Silver Surfer.
That’s according to Michael Chiklis, who played The Thing 20 years ago in both movies. Speaking to Collider, Chiklis said critics got both movies wrong, and pointed to the audience reception and the money the movies made collectively at the box office as evidence that they “got a lot right.”
“There were a lot of people, I think, critically who got it wrong,” he said. “They really maligned our films, and they were very underrated considering… they were very loved by the audience. It was one of those cases where critics weren’t great to those films, but the audience was, and that still remains.”
2005’s Fantastic Four (which stars a young Chris Evans as the Human Torch before he would go on to play Captain America in the MCU), has a 28% rating on Rotten Tomatoes’ ‘Tomatometer,’ which means 28% of critics gave Fantastic Four a positive review.
That’s the collective reception from critics, but what about the audience score? That’s 45%, according to Rotten Tomatoes’ ‘Popcornmeter.’ What does that mean, exactly? 45% of users rated Fantastic Four 3.5 stars or higher. Rise of the Silver Surfer fared better, with a 37% Tomatometer rating, and a 51% Popcornmeter.
According to Chiklis, the recent release of the MCU Phase Six kickstarter The Fantastic Four: First Steps has finally caused people to acknowledge both movies were “really good.”
“I’ve always sort of quietly gone like, okay, say what you want to say, but the people see it,” he said. “And now all these years later, people are sort of acknowledging like, hey, these films are family-friendly, fun movies… they got a lot right. They may be imperfect, but they’re really good movies.”
And then there’s the box office for the movies. “We made three quarters of $1 billion, those two movies,” Chiklis said. “So, you know, all those people can’t be completely out of their minds, you know what I mean?”
According to Box Office Mojo, Fantastic Four grossed $333,535,934 at the global box office during its theatrical run, whereas Rise of the Silver Surfer made $301,913,131.
Ioan Gruffudd, who starred alongside Chiklis as Reed Richards / Mr. Fantastic, recently told Vulture they originally planned to make three Fantastic Four films, but the trilogy plan was ditched.
“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,” Gruffudd said.
“I particularly loved working with Doug Jones [as the Silver Surfer] on that movie, who’s just a terrific artist and an expert in the field of movement. If you want to witness somebody bringing a character to life physically, he’s just untouchable. So there was definitely that sort of momentum, and the plan was to do three movies, but these decisions are beyond my control.”
The Fantastic Four: First Steps is under a box office scrutiny of its own, despite already outperforming every other Fantastic Four movie with $434.2 million globally. After starting strong, weekend two and three have seen sharp declines, to the point now where First Steps is unlikely to beat DCU kickstarter Superman. The question is, will Marvel Studios see it as a box office disappointment ahead of next year’s Avengers: Doomsday?
Photo by Chris Polk/FilmMagic.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
