Trivia for the film:
- Actor-Inspired Element:
- Julian McMahon, who plays Doctor Doom, suggested that metal staples be used to help stitch the scar at the beginning of his transformation. This comes from McMahon's experience playing a cosmetic surgeon on Nip/Tuck, making it also a subtle Actor Allusion.
- Ioan Gruffudd suggested that Reed constantly be taking notes.
- Awesome, Dear Boy:
- Jessica Alba wanted to play the Invisible Woman because she wanted to play in a superhero film.
- Michael Chiklis, being a fan of the comics immediately accepted the role of Ben Grimm.
- Blooper: The scene where we see Ben's feet under the train, it was actually a double wearing boots. This happened right before Ben breaks into the Men's Big & Tall store.
- Creator-Preferred Adaptation: Stan Lee named Michael Chiklis' performance as the Thing as his favourite portrayal of any Marvel character to date.
- Dueling Movies: With The Incredibles (a dysfunctional superhero familynote ) and Revenge of the Sith (features a cloaked villain shooting out electricity and was released two months apart). The film had to be reshot to prevent similarities with the earlier. Ironically, all three movies produced memorable memes.
- Dyeing for Your Art:
- Jessica Alba dyed her hair blonde for the film, although she wore a wig for the sequel.
- Michael Chiklis endured the hours-long daily prosthetics process at his own insistence because he felt the best way to convey Ben Grimm's inner humanity and pain was to have a real person struggle to convey those emotions beneath layers of foam and rubber. He also read to his children for hours on end while wearing the Thing's teeth so his lines could be recorded live on set, rather than rely on looping, again to be able to convey Grimm's emotions in the moment.
- Fake American: The Welsh Ioan Gruffudd as Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic
- Follow the Leader:
- This film was made after the success of Spider-Man. It goes for a similarly lighthearted tone and there's more than a passing resembling between Dr. Doom's story-arc from this film and Norman Osborn's from that one.
- Following the release of The Incredibles, changes were made to the script and more special effects were added.
- Meaningful Release Date: It was originally supposed to be released on July 4, 2005, and early trailers played this up. However, its release date was shifted to four days later.
- Missing Trailer Scene:
- In the first trailer, Dr. Doom electrocutes Ned near water. In the actual film, he shoots a bolt through and out Ned's chest.
- Instead of saying "That's gross", some promos would have Johnny say "Can we agree that's disgusting?"
- Promoted Fanboy:
- Tim Story was an avid fan of the comics.
- Michael Chiklis has been a comic book fan since he was a kid. Guess which one was his favorite?
- Julian McMahon is also a fan of the Fantastic Four comics before he joined the film series.
- Release Date Change: The first film's release date got delayed to four days after its initial release date.
- Romance on the Set: Jessica Alba met her future husband Cash Warren while filming the first film on August 2004 at Vancouver.
- Saved from Development Hell:
- Following The Fantastic Four, Chris Columbus was hired by 20th Century Fox to write and direct a proper adaptation in 1995 with Avi Arad and Ralph Winter producing with real-life couple Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan playing Reed Richards and Sue Storm. Columbus developed a screenplay with Michael France, but decided to step down as director and focus on producing under his 1492 Pictures company.
- In April 1997, Peter Segal was brought in to direct, but he was replaced by Sam Weisman by the end of the year. Fox brought in Sam Hamm to rewrite the script in April 1998 in an attempt to lower the $165 million projected budget.
- In February 1999, with development taking longer than expected, the producers signed a deal with Marvel to extend the control of the film rights for another two years, with a summer 2001 release planned. Raja Gosnell was hired to direct, but he dropped out in October 2000 in order to direct Scooby-Doo (2002). He was replaced by Peyton Reed in April 2001 and Mark Frost was brought on board for another rewrite. This version was inspired by A Hard Day's Night and would have starred Alexis Denisof as Reed Richards, Charlize Theron as Sue Storm, Paul Walker as Johnny Storm and John C. Reilly as Ben Grimm and Jude Law as Doctor Doom. Reed departed in July 2003 (instead he made another 60s period piece for Fox that year, Down with Love). In 2015, he explained why he left the project:
I developed it for the better part of a year with three different sets of writers. But it became clear after a while that Fox had a very different movie in mind and they were also chasing a release date...so we ended up parting company.- Tim Story was signed on to direct in April 2004, after Fox was impressed with his early cut of Taxi (2004).
- Star-Making Role:
- Alongside Sin City, this film gave Jessica Alba her big breakthrough in cinema.
- Ditto Chris Evans.
- Technology Marches On: One scene has Johnny use a digital camera. Nowadays, he would use a smartphone.
- Throw It In!:
- Chris Evans improvised most of his dialogue in the movie, such as the "Aw, look — she's kissing him.", which fits seamlessly in the scene as for the benefit of Alicia, who was standing right next to him (she's blind).
- Ioan Gruffudd was supposed to say "What happens when you supercool hot metal?" Instead, he said "What happens when you rapidly cool hot metal?" Tim Story approved of this and left it in the film.
- Uncredited Role: Simon Kinberg did uncredited work on the script.
- Wag the Director: Michael Chiklis successfully fought for The Thing to be a real creation and not CGI, even if it meant wearing an uncomfortable costume.
Trivia for the tie-in game:
- Creator Backlash: Zak Penn, the writer of the tie-in video game, made a self-deprecating jab at the game, as well as X-Men: The Official Game, in his 2014 documentary Atari: Game Over while going over his career writing for both comic book movies and the "shitty video games" made out of them.
- The Other Darrin: The game saw Cree Summer fill in for Kerry Washington as Alicia. Additionally, the game had three bonus levels using the 616 and Ultimates costumes, where none of the film actors reprised their roles, including Robin Atkin Downes replacing Ioan Gruffudd as Reed, Grey DeLisle replacing Jessica Alba as Sue, Fred Tatasciore replacing Michael Chiklis as Ben, Quinton Flynn reprising his role from the '90s cartoon and replacing Chris Evans as Johnny, and Jim Meskimen replacing Julian McMahon as Dr. Doom.
- Role Reprise: With the exception of Alicia as well as the three bonus levels with the 616 and Ultimate costumes, all of the film's actors reprised their roles for the tie-in game.
