Miles Teller is looking back at Fantastic Four a decade later, and the actor isn’t holding back. Speaking on SiriusXM’s Radio Andy, Teller said one “really important person” ruined the 2015 Marvel reboot, which bombed at the box office and remains the lowest-grossing Fantastic Four movie to date.
Teller Reflects on a Troubled Production
Teller joked with Andy Cohen, “You saw the movie, right? Your eyes were working during that time?” He said the cast and crew worked hard, but “maybe there was one really important person who kind of f’d it all up.”
He didn’t name names, but he made it clear the final version wasn’t what the actors signed up for. Teller said he took the role to be taken seriously as a leading man in the superhero space, adding, “That was our chance. And the casting, I thought, was spectacular. I love all those actors.”
The film starred Teller as Reed Richards, along with Michael B. Jordan, Kate Mara, Jamie Bell, and Tim Blake Nelson.
Teller Realized the Movie Was in Trouble
Teller said he knew things had gone off the rails as soon as he saw the finished film. “I remember talking to one of the studio heads, and I was like, ‘I think we’re in trouble.’”
Fantastic Four went on to gross $167.8 million worldwide on a $120 million budget, a major failure for what Fox hoped would be a flagship franchise.
Behind-the-Scenes Blame Resurfaces
Teller’s comments revive the long-running controversy around director Josh Trank’s version of the film. At the time, The Hollywood Reporter detailed a chaotic production marked by tension between Trank and the studio.
Sources for the outlet claimed Trank isolated himself, resisted input, and failed to deliver usable material. One crew member said the director “holed up in a tent and cut himself off from everybody,” while others accused him of shutting down communication.
Trank publicly tweeted that he had made “a fantastic version” of the movie that audiences would “probably never see,” then deleted it. He later told Variety that the film failed because it was simply the wrong combination of people trying to make one project: “Everybody was doing the wrong thing.”
Major box office bomb
Fantastic Four 2015 bombed at the box office with only a $167.8 million gross, with a budget of $120 million, meaning its break-even number was $300 million. The film has a Rotten Tomatoes Score of 9% and an audience score of 18%.
Marvel Studios recently rebooted the franchise with The Fantastic Four: First Steps, which, while it did better than the 2015 movie, still managed to underperform at the box office with a $521.8 million gross. The characters will next appear in Avengers: Doomsday.
