Ioan Gruffudd Reflects on Why His Third ‘Fantastic Four’ Movie Was Scrapped

Ioan Gruffudd Reflects on Why His Third ‘Fantastic Four’ Movie Was Scrapped

The Fantastic Four movies from two decades ago ended prematurely.

Ioan Gruffudd starred as Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic in 2005’s Fantastic Four and the 2007 sequel, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, and with the new Fantastic Four film recently hitting theaters, he’s reflecting on how there was supposed to be a third film in the early ’00s series and why it didn’t happen.

“The mindset was that we were going to do three,” he told Vulture. “I think the second movie was equally successful as the first and equally enjoyable for the fans. 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.”

He added, “So there was definitely that sort of momentum, and the plan was to do three movies, but these decisions are beyond my control.” The films were distributed by 20th Century Fox.

In the two movies, Jessica Alba portrays Sue Storm/Invisible Woman, Chris Evans is Johnny Storm/Human Torch and Michael Chiklis plays Ben Grimm/The Thing. The late Julian McMahon played villain, Victor von Doom/Doctor Doom. He died last month at age 56.  

Elsewhere in the interview, Gruffudd also reminisced on working with co-star Evans and shared his thoughts on the actor’s cameo in Deadpool & Wolverine.

“I absolutely loved working with him. I just remember laughing with Chris every single day on set, almost like giddy teenagers,” he said. “It was a true delight to see Chris reprising Johnny, and that’s such an iconic sequence in that film. I was laughing out loud and just overjoyed by it, and it’s a beautiful homage to what Chris did as Johnny.”

Since then, the superhero team was rebooted for 2015’s bomb The Fantastic Four, which starred Miles Teller, Michael B. Jordan, Kate Mara and Jamie Bell. The Fantastic Four: First Steps, a new iteration, hit theaters on July 25 and stars Pedro Pascal, Joseph Quinn, Vanessa Kirby and Ebon Moss-Bachrach.