Before the upcoming Fantastic Four film, and before the 2005 Fantastic Four film, there was yet another Fantastic Four film. Produced by Roger Corman, the 1994 Fantastic Four was made without any intention of ever being distributed—rather, it was a means of retaining the movie rights to the comic book. Although it never hit theaters, Corman’s film long ago leaked through bootlegs, so when Vulture’s video editors decided to recut the new Fantastic Four trailer into a ’90s-style action trailer, they had plenty of footage to give their remix an authentic vintage feel.
Vulture places the narration and music from the new (rather dour-looking) film over scenes from the Corman production, mixing the portentous gravitas of the new movie with a work in which The Thing can’t properly sit down in a chair. Harkening back to a time before superhero franchises were serious business, the remix straddles two eras and two diverging attitudes toward how to render comic book heroes on film.