Why Ioan Gruffudd-Led Fantastic Four 3 Never Happened

Ioan Gruffudd, who portrayed Reed Richards / Mister Fantastic in 2005’s Fantastic Four and 2007’s Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, recently spoke about why the third movie didn’t happen. While both movies were received poorly by critics, they did well at the box office, becoming commercially successful ventures.

Ioan Gruffudd talks Fantastic Four 3 cancellation by Fox

Gruffudd reflected on his tenure as Reed Richards / Mister Fantastic in a new interview with Vulture. Notably, Gruffudd and his three main co-stars (Jessica Alba, Chris Evans, and Michael Chiklis) were supposed to do three films with Fox Studios. However, the project was ultimately canceled, and the studio decided to reboot Fantastic Four, which resulted in the 2015 movie of the same name featuring a completely different cast.

The Bad Boys: Ride or Die actor stated that the intention was that they would do three movies, but the eventual decision to scrap the project wasn’t something he could change.

“The mind-set 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,” he explained, adding that he “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.”

Gruffudd continued, “So there was definitely that sort of momentum, and the plan was to do three movies, but these decisions are beyond my control.”

The 2015 movie was a big critical and commercial failure, and the studio subsequently canceled its plan for a sequel. The “first family of Marvel” eventually returned to the big screen as part of the MCU with The Fantastic Four: First Steps, which has a different cast from previous renditions.

When asked if he would ever consider returning as Reed in a future project, Gruffudd made it clear that Marvel hasn’t approached him about it yet. He added, “But you never know.”

Originally reported by Tamal Kundu on SuperHeroHype.

Source: Comingsoon.net