An actor of Lord of the Rings wanted to make a Fantastic Four movie with a pop star

From 2003 to 2003, the films of “Lord of the Rings” by Peter Jackson dominated the landscape of pop culture. Jackson made the three films at the same time, and they were all released in a year from each other, inspiring experts and criticism to rethink the way in which long -standing films were made in the future. In time before, studios would not generally plan several suites at the same time, while waiting for a film to earn money before starting a conversation on the next. However, between the films “Lord of the Rings” and “Harry Potter”, the conversation changed in the 2000s. From this moment, the multi -share film series could be launched en masse. This, in turn, led directly to the Marvel cinematographic universe, et al.

Because his films “Rings” were so revolutionary, Jackson received carte blanche to make the film he wanted as a follow -up project. Perhaps strangely, he chose to redo Marien C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack in 1933 “King Kong”, a film that greatly inspired Jackson when he was a child. Jackson’s “King Kong”, which was released in 2005, was not a great film, but it was a nice gesture; Jackson seemed to have fun.

He was not the only one who wanted to surf the crest of the popularity of the “rings”. Sean Astin, who played the Hobbit Samwise Gamgee in the “Rings” films, knew that the iron was hot and thought it was time to hit. Ambitions as a housing director, Astin felt that 2003 was the ideal moment to start presenting his own large -scale pop film project on a big budget. Even at the time, Astin had already intuited that superheroes were going to be the next great thing. More specifically, he knew that the fantastic four deserved their own film, and he wanted to make it.

Astin’s story is long and detailed. Speaking at the Las Vegas Comic Con 2019 (via Collider), he explained that “the campaign to obtain the work was what was incredible”. He noted that there were already many scenarios for a film “Fantastic Four” circulating around Hollywood at that time, the most famous of which had been attached to Christopher Columbus to Direct. Columbus, so to speak, also rose high in the early 2000s, having directed the first two films “Harry Potter”. Consequently, Astin said that he had, rather carefully, found the matching scripts of the “fantastic four” so that he could examine the ways in which the project had evolved.

In addition to that, Astin had already known Columbus since he had written the script for “The Goonies”, in which Astin had played in his child. As such, he found the filmmaker and they had a few words on Astin’s “Fantastic Fantastic” ambitions. As Astin recalled:

“I went and found all these scenarios. I remember called Chris Columbus […] And because he wrote “Les Goonies”, he took my call. And I said, “I really want to lead this”. Not really knowing that he should lead him for a while and that he did it with it. […] It was under his control. I asked “wow, are you going to do it?” He said, “I don’t think so, because the version I would like to make would cost $ 200 million”.

To say Columbus that the version he imagined would only cost about 30 million dollars, Astin then asked if he could have the script, so the first handed him. Once it was sure, Astin has traveled worldwide to check various special effects houses because he knew that “Fantastic Four” would require advanced technology, and he wanted to be warned of what was done. Consequently, he ended up talking to Lucasfilm artists and, of course, of the Wētā workshop, who had previously worked on the films of “Lord of the Rings” by Jackson.

It was at this stage of history that Astin admitted that, uh, he knew nothing about the fantastic four. Or rather, he knew that it was a property of hot comics, but he was not a fan. Indeed, part of his development process, he admitted, involved collecting a heap of money and buying all the comics of the “Fantastic Four” that he could, with the intention of reading them all. The plan as he said was to give an expensive intensive course in Marvel Lore. In his own words:

“I jumped into a taxi and I went to Midtown Comics. I called Midtown Comics, and I am like … I didn’t know anything. I could not know anything fantastic. If the characters walked in front of me, I would not know who they were. I knew just” it’s America. “” […] American heroes. So I said to the guy of Midtown ‘I come. I want to buy everything in your comic book bookstore that has something to do with Fantastic Four. ‘ ‘He said, “Really?” “”

The effort, Astin was relieved to find, did not require that he buys comics of expensive and costly first edition. He also remembered having tried to set up a meeting with, yes, Christina Aguilera, that he thought she would be a good storm of prosecution. The meeting never took place, but it has indeed received a call. It was in 2003, shortly after the release of her album “Stopped”, so she was very in the eyes of the public. The conversation seems to have been a non-starter.

Unfortunately, the biggest project has also collapsed. Astin was passionate, but the fact that he had never carried out a functionality before made the studio leaders tight, and he was not hired. It was however Astin’s idea to launch Michael Chiklis as the thing, a role he would end up playing in the film “Fantastic Fourt” by Tim Story 2005. Astin also spoke to Cameron Diaz to play in Sue Storm, but she refused it, not wanting to wear makeup of superheroes. He could not run the film, but Astin may have been a major factor to bring Fantastic Four on the big screen.