Miles Teller is looking back on what went wrong with 2015’s Fantastic Four. And he seems to know exactly what happened. Teller has had an interesting career, as at the start of the 2010s he broke out with high-profile roles in Footloose, The Spectacular Now, and Whiplash, and has since gone on to star in blockbusters like Top Gun: Maverick and will next be seen in the supernatural rom-com Eternity and Michael, the biopic about Michael Jackson. Yet in between those films, Teller played Reed Richards / Mister Fantastic in 2015’s Fantastic Four. What was supposed to be a major headlining superhero role and franchise picture fizzled out immediately with a 9% on Rotten Tomatoes and one of the worst box office returns for a superhero movie ever.
Speaking to Sirus XM, Teller looked back at his experience making Fantastic Four. “When I first saw the movie, I remember talking to one of the studio heads, and I was like, ‘I think we’re in trouble.'” said Teller. Teller later added what motivated him to star in Fantastic Four, saying, “especially as a young actor, at that time, it’s like, ‘All right, if you wanna be taken seriously as a leading man, you gotta get on this superhero train.’ And that was our chance, and the casting, I thought, was spectacular. I love all those actors.” When asked if he and the cast knew about the film’s quality during the promotional tour, Teller said:
“I think it’s unfortunate for that, because so many people worked so hard on that movie. And honestly, maybe there was one really important person who kind of f—ed it all up.”
What Happened on the Set of ‘Fantastic Four ‘?
While Teller doesn’t specify who the “one person” is by name, it is safe to assume it is director Josh Trank. Despite Trank pushing 20th Century Fox to hire Teller as Mister Fantastic, the actor and director reportedly did not get along on set. Reports suggest that after the director made rude comments to Invisible Woman actress Kate Mara, Teller and Trank got in each other’s faces at one point, daring the other to throw the first punch. Trank is said to have exhibited erratic behavior on the set of The Fantastic Four, and Kate Mara has described her experience as “horrible.”
Reportedly, before Fantastic Four opened, Trank sent a text message to the cast saying the film was “better than 99% of comic book movies ever made,” to which one unnamed cast member reportedly said, “I don’t think so.” While not confirmed, a strong case could be made that the person who made that response was Miles Teller. Trank then infamously tweeted on the day Fantastic Four opened in theaters, “A year ago I had a fantastic version of this. And it would’ve received great reviews. You’ll probably never see it. That’s reality though.”. At the time, it was estimated that the tweet cost Fantastic Four between $5 to $10 million in its opening weekend, which kept it from taking the number one spot at the box office and ultimately opening at number two behind Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation in its second week of release.
Since the release of 2015’s Fantastic Four nearly killed the franchise, Marvel’s first family has made a heroic return. 2025’s The Fantastic Four: First Steps introduced a new incarnation of the team into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, who will return in Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars. Meanwhile, fans are hoping that maybe Miles Teller will return one day to play his version of Reed Richards, but as the villainous character The Maker. In the comics, The Maker was the Ultimate version of Reed Richards who became a supervillain, and Miles Teller as The Maker would make for a great villain in a Fantastic Four: First Steps sequel.
- Release Date
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August 5, 2015
- Runtime
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100 minutes
- Producers
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Gregory Goodman, Hutch Parker, Matthew Vaughn, Robert Kulzer
