In January, after months of keeping tight-lipped on the project, 20th Century Fox released the first trailer for The Fantastic Four. At barely two minutes, it fulfilled its role as a teaser, but evidently the studio didn’t show their whole hand with the preview. Leaked footage from an alternate trailer has found its way online, and its most exciting moment features Johnny and Sue Storm using their new powers to fly around the Negative Zone. Check it out!
This Instagram footage definitely looks like it was filmed in a movie theater. Adding only a couple extra seconds to the preview, it’s odd why they didn’t just include this in the preview released online, unless of course they were trying to provide extra incentive for comic book fans to go see Kingsman: The Secret Service. The first trailer, which has become 20th Century Fox’s most viewed trailer, only gave brief glimpses of Johnny flaming on, Ben Grimm as the Thing and what may have been Reed Richards about to stretch his arm. Although Kate Mara was seen at several points, she didn’t get to turn invisible once, which is why it’s surprising that our first look at her powers would be flying in an energy bubble rather than simply hiding herself from the human eye.
The fact that these two are flying, however, isn’t surprising at all. In the comics, Johnny frequently takes flight after setting himself on fire, while Sue being able to levitate and fly is a byproduct of her ability to create invisible objects. However, The Fantastic Four will the first time on film that Sue will be seen flying, the previous series only having her be able to turn herself invisible and generate force fields. As you can see, that invisible energy Sue manipulates is strong enough to power through a gigantic rock body.
Taking inspiration from the Ultimate continuity, The Fantastic Four will have the four heroes gain their powers from their journey to the Negative Zone, an alternate universe, rather than out in space. From what little we’ve seen of this extra dimensional world, there’s been a lot in the way of bizarre natural activity like active volcanos and energy beams shooting into the sky. It’s unclear if the siblings are simply testing out their new abilities or if they are fleeing from an unknown threat. Other than a few alien species, the Negative Zone is mostly uninhabited in the comics, but it wouldn’t be surprising if the four heroes came across a monstrous creature in the film, forcing them to use their new abilities to survive and make it back to Earth.
The Fantastic Four will be released in theaters on August 7.
