Michael Chiklis is standing up for 2005’s “Fantastic Four.”
In a recent interview with Collider, Chiklis, who played Ben Grimm, aka The Thing, in “Fantastic Four” and its 2007 sequel “Rise of the Silver Surfer,” said the two Marvel blockbusters were “underrated” at the time of their release, and critics who panned the films “got it wrong.”
“There were a lot of people, I think, critically who got it wrong,” Chiklis said. “They really maligned our films, and they were very underrated considering… they were very loved by the audience. It was one of those cases where critics weren’t great to those films, but the audience was, and that still remains.”
He continued, “I’ve always sort of quietly gone like, ‘Okay, say what you want to say, but the people see it.’ And now all these years later, people are sort of acknowledging like, hey, these films are family-friendly, fun movies… they got a lot right. They may be imperfect, but they’re really good movies.”
Both mid-aughts “Fantastic Four” films have seen some renewed interest with the recent release of “The Fantastic Four: First Steps.” However, upon their debut, they were hardly critical darlings. “Fantastic Four” sits at 28% on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, while “Rise of the Silver Surfer” sits at a slightly improved 37%.
Although they weren’t critically beloved, Chiklis noted that both films achieved some commercial success.
“We made three quarters of $1 billion, those two movies,” he added. “So, you know, all those people can’t be completely out of their minds, you know what I mean?”
Ioan Gruffudd, who starred alongside Chiklis as Reed Richards, aka Mr. Fantastic, recently told Vulture they originally planned to make three “Fantastic Four” films, but the would-be trilogy was ultimately cut short.
“The mindset was that we were going to do three, and I think the second movie was equally successful as the first and equally enjoyable for the fans,” Gruffudd said. “I particularly loved working with Doug Jones [as the Silver Surfer] on that movie, who’s just a terrific artist and an expert in the field of movement. If you want to witness somebody bringing a character to life physically, he’s just untouchable. So there was definitely that sort of momentum, and the plan was to do three movies, but these decisions are beyond my control.”
