Contains spoilers for “The Fantastic Four: First Steps”
From watching the trailers and marketing materials, you probably had a good idea of what to expect going into “The Fantastic Four: First Steps.” However, there’s one thing from the trailers that’s conspicuously absent from the final film — John Malkovich in the role of Marvel Comics villain Ivan Kragoff, aka Red Ghost.
Fans have been expecting him since the original “First Steps” trailer featured a glimpse of him emerging out of darkness with wild hair and an untamed beard. Combined with Paul Walter Hauser’s Mole Man, it seemed like the film was going to deploy some of the lesser Fantastic Four villains. But there’s no Red Ghost in the finished film, and it appears to come down to the fact there were too many elements and characters in the story already. There’s the four members of the titular team, plus the cosmic threats of Silver Surfer and Galactus, as well as a newborn baby. Throwing Red Ghost in there may have made things too unwieldy or slowed down the main action.
Prior to the film’s release, director Matt Shakman told Variety about the tough decision to cut his role: “It was heartbreaking not to include him in the final version of the movie because he’s one of my very favorite humans and one of my biggest inspirations.” Shakman and Malkovich previously worked together on the 2014 film “Cut Bank,” so no doubt leaving his scenes on the cutting room floor was extra painful.
The Fantastic Four: First Steps refers to Red Ghost in name only
John Malkovich has been in some truly amazing movies, and even though he may not physically appear in “The Fantastic Four: First Steps,” he’s there in spirit. Early in the film, there’s a sequence showing all of the Fantastic Four members in action,including a brief shot of Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal) fighting an orangutan. This is one of Red Ghost’s many Super-Apes, which in the comics are an army of enhanced primates created by the evil scientist to battle Marvel’s First Family.
Red Ghost makes a brief appearance (albeit in cartoon form) in the “First Steps” post-credits scene. The sequence shows the opening credits for the in-universe “Fantastic Four” cartoon, and there’s a moment where we see Red Ghost alongside a few of his Super-Apes. It’s too bad Malkovich’s role got cut, as it would have been fun to see whether his character factored into the film’s climax. Mole Man, despite usually being a villain, helps evacuate New Yorkers into his underground city of Subterranea to keep them safe while the Fantastic Four battles Galactus, so perhaps Red Ghost could have also turned over a new leaf for the greater good.
The only silver lining in Malkovich’s role getting cut is that he can appear in another MCU movie now. A lot of Marvel movies are on deck following “Fantastic Four: First Steps,” and Malkovich could bring plenty of gravitas to either a hero, villain, or something in between.