Miles Teller opened up about leading the ill-fated 2015 “Fantastic Four” adaptation, telling Andy Cohen that he already wasn’t expecting a warm response for the superhero reboot after watching the final cut.
“When I first saw the movie, I remember talking to one of the studio heads and said, ‘I think we’re in trouble,’” Teller said in an interview on Cohen’s SiriusXM talk show. Teller went on to explain the industry pressure he felt in his late twenties to take on a superhero film — a genre that the “Top Gun: Maverick” star hasn’t touched since.
“As a young actor at that time, it’s like, ‘Alright, if you want to be taken seriously as a leading man, you got to get on this superhero train. That was our chance,” Teller said. “And the casting, I thought, was spectacular. I love all those actors.”
“Fantastic Four,” which starred Teller, Kate Mara, Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Bell as the titular team, was critically reviled upon release. Directed by Josh Trank, the feature only grossed $168 million globally against a $120 million production budget. The Marvel characters were put on ice for the next decade, only revived last summer for the Marvel Cinematic Universe entry “The Fantastic 4: First Steps.”
Speaking with Cohen, Teller appeared to lay the blame for the project’s failure on one individual, though he did not put a name to his allegations.
“It’s unfortunate for that, because so many people worked so hard on that movie. And honestly, maybe there was one really important person who kind of fucked it all up,” Teller said.
Teller is currently promoting his next feature “Eternity,” in which he, Elizabeth Olsen and Callum Turner play a love triangle in the afterlife. A24 is releasing the film to theaters on Nov. 26.
